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QP421  .L51  The  human  machine  an 


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THE    HUMAN    MACHINE 

AND 

INDUSTRIAL   EFFICIENCY 


THE  HITMAN  MACHINE 

AND 

INDUSTRIAL  EFFICIENCY 


BY 
FREDERIC  S.  LEE,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Daltnn  Professor  of  Physiology  in  Columbia  University;  President  of  the 

American  Physiological  Society;  Consulting  Physiologist  to  the  U.S. 

Public  Health  Service;    Chairman  of  the  Sub-Committee  on 

Fatigue  in  Industrial  Pursuits  of  the  Xational  Research 

Council;  Executive  Secretary  of  the  Divisional 

Committee  on  Industrial  Fatigue  under 

the  Advisory  Commission  of  the 

Council  of  National  Defense 


WI  Til  ILL  US  TRA  TIOXS 


LOXGM  A  N  S,    G  R  E  E~N   AND    C  O 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30th  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
39    PATERNOSTER    ROW.    LONDON 

BOMBAY,  CALCUTTA,  AND  MADRAS 

1918 


Copyright,  1918 
By  FREDERIC  S.  LEE 


All  Rights  Reserved 


PRESS  OF 
BRAUNWORTH   &  CO- 
BOOK  MANUFACTURERS 
BROOKLYN,   N.  V. 


PREFACE 

Most  of  the  substance  of  this  little  book  con- 
stituted the  two  Cutter  Lectures  on  Preventive 
Medicine  and  Hygiene,  which  were  given  at  the 
Harvard  Medical  School,  April  25  and  26,  1918, 
under  the  title  "  Industrial  Effieicnc}'  and  the 
War."  Many  of  the  facts  here  presented  relate 
to  war  industries,  but  they  are  none  the  less 
pertinent  as  illustrating  the  principles  enunciated; 
and  even  if  interest  in  the  facts  dies  out,  the  prin- 
ciples, it  is  hoped,  will  survive  and  receive  atten- 
tion long  after  the  war  has  ended.  I  believe 
fully  that  any  activity  in  which  the  human  body 
plays  so  large  a  part  as  it  does  in  industry  must  be 
organized  on  a  physiological  basis  before  the  high- 
est degree  of  efficiency  can  be  secured.  In  the 
field  of  human  activity  here  discussed  a  science 
of  industrial  physiology  must  come  into  being,  a 
science  of  the  human  machine  in  industry,  and 
this  must  be  developed  largely  within  industrial 
establishments  themselves.  They  constitute  the 
laboratories  in  which  much  of  the  observation  and 
experiment  of  the  future  must  be  made.  If  I  can 
help  to  make  this  thought  accepted  by  others  than 


vi  PREFACE 

physiologists  and  especially  by  industrial  leaders, 
I  shall  be  gratified. 

In  preparing  this  summary  of  our  present  knowl- 
edge I  am  under  many  obligations  to  my  col- 
leagues in  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service  and  the 
Committees  on  Industrial  Fatigue.  Their  names 
will  be  found  at  the  beginning  of  the  Bibliography 
printed  at  the  end  of  the  volume.  The  numbers 
in  the  text  refer  to  the  Bibliography. 

Frederic  S.  Lee. 
Columbia  University, 
June  1,  1918. 


CONTENTS 


I.  Introduction 


1 


II.  The  Qualifications  of  AVorkers      ...  5 

III.  Output  and  Fatigue 10 

IV.  Secondary  Sources  of  Fatigue         .       .       .19 
V.  Resting  Periods 24 

VI.  The  Length  of  the  Working  Day  ...  29 
VII.  Capacity  and  the  Self-limitation  of  Output  39 
VIII.  The  Maintenance  of  Working  Power.     Over- 
time       43 

IX.  The  Labor  Turnover 49 

X.  The  Industrial  Efficiency  of  Women  Com- 
pared with  Men 53 

XL  Night  Work  in  Comparison  with  Day  Work  61 

XII.  Industrial  Accidents 73 

XIII.  Industrial  Medicine.     Welfare  Work  .       .  79 

XIV.  Food 84 

XV.  Scientific  Management 90 

XVI.  The  Physiological  Organization  of  Work  .  96 

XVII.  Summary 100 

Bibliography 105 

Index 115 


vii 


THE   HUMAN   MACHINE 


INTRODUCTION 

In  the  modern  factory  the  science  of  machinery 
is  developed  to  its  highest  point.  In  the  selection, 
construction,  and  use  of  the  machine  nothing 
is  left  to  chance.  Its  type  is  selected  in  accord- 
ance with  its  exact  fitness  for  the  work  demanded 
of  it.  It  is  constructed  of  appropriate  materials 
and  is  so  designed  as  to  avoid  lost  motion  and  the 
waste  of  energy  involved  and  to  allow  the  highest 
possible  proportion  of  the  total  energy  that  is 
transformed  to  perforin  the  work  required.  It  is 
kept  clean,  unnecessary  friction  is  avoided,  and 
every  care  is  taken  that  its  bearings  shall  not 
become  corroded,  rusted,  or  worn  beyond  repair. 
When  in  action  it  is  run  at  a  speed  for  which  it  is 
planned,  it  is  not  overloaded,  and  not  overheated; 
the  conditions  under  which  it  can  work  with  the 
greatest  efficiency  have  been  carefully  studied; 
and  every  effort  is  made  to  maintain  these  condi- 
tions and  secure  the  largest  possible  output  with- 


2  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

out  injury  or  unnecessary  deterioration  of  the 
machine  itself.  And  the  machine,  it  should  be 
added,  responds  to  all  the  care  expended  on  its 
welfare  and  proves  by  what  it  does  the  value  of 
the  efforts  made  in  its  behalf. 

But  there  is  another  element  in  factory  equip- 
ment which  must  direct,  make  useful  and  supple- 
ment the  machinery,  and  this  is  the  human  ele- 
ment. The  term  "  labor-saving  machinery "  is 
misleading;  for,  while  the  modern  factory  machine 
does  indeed  save  labor  in  some  degree,  it  gives 
labor  more  opportunities,  directs  it  into  new  chan- 
nels, confines  it  to  more  specialized  operations,  and 
makes  it  more  necessary  than  ever  to  industrial 
advance.  It  is  pertinent  to  our  present  purpose 
to  regard  this  human  element,  the  combined  body 
and  mind  of  the  worker,  as  itself  a  machine. 
There  is  nothing  derogatory  to  the  worker  in  this 
conception;  it  is  the  customary  conception  of 
physiological  science,  which  has  learned  to  respect 
living  substance  above  all  other  created  things  and 
yet  finds  it  most  helpful  to  regard  every  living  body 
as  a  mechanism  working  according  to  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  all  mechanisms,  but  with  its  own 
specific  ways  of  acting  that  characterize  living  in 
contrast  to  non-living  substance.  No  other  fac- 
tory mechanism  approaches  this  human  machine 
in  its  intricacy,  the  perfection  of  the  correlation 
of  its  working  parts,  its  combination  of  delicacy 


INTRODUCTION  3 

and  strength,  and  its  adaptability  to  the  work 
required  of  it.     None  is  so  essential  to  industry. 

Nevertheless,  the  present  ways  of  handling  the 
human  machine  are  empirical  and  crude.  Experi- 
ence has  taught  most  industrial  managers  what 
they  believe  to  be  the  proper  ways  of  dealing  with 
the  workers,  and  experience  is  conceived  to  be  the 
best  guide.  The  thought  that  the  worker  is  a 
physiological  mechanism  and  should  be  treated 
as  such,  that  the  problem  of  the  worker  is  a  physio- 
logical problem,  is  regarded  as  academic,  fit  for 
the  laboratory,  but  not  "  practical  "  enough  for 
the  factory.  That  word  "  practical  "  is  one  of 
the  most  alluring,  most  dangerous  and  most  mis- 
used words  in  the  English  tongue.  Crimes  un- 
numbered have  been  committed  in  its  name.  It  is 
true  that  the  science  of  the  human  machine  as 
employed  in  industrial  work  has  not  yet  been  de- 
veloped so  far  as  that  of  non-living  machinery,  but 
the  utilization  of  the  science  has  not  kept  pace 
with  its  advance,  and  though  here  and  there  a 
factory  management  stands  out  as  being  fully 
alive  to  the  desirability  of  organizing  its  work  on  a 
really  scientific  basis,  to  the  average  manager 
this  is  yet  to  be  proved. 

The  war  is  making  unprecedented  demands  on 
industry.  It  is  now  generally  recognized  that 
toward  the  winning  of  the  war  industrial  effort 
must  contribute  as  much  as  military  effort,  and 


4  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

just  as  military  activity  is  everywhere  seeking  as 
never  before  the  aid  of  science,  so  the  indus- 
trial system,  if  it  would  respond  loyally  to  the 
call  upon  it,  cannot  continue  to  rely  upon  its  tra- 
ditional methods,  but  should  utilize  whatever  help 
science  can  give.  That  physiology  can  give  much 
to  industry  has  been  demonstrated  during  the  past 
three  years  by  investigations  that  have  been  car- 
ried on,  in  both  America  (1)  and  England  (2), 
especially  in  munition  factories,  and  it  is  chiefly 
to  some  of  the  results  of  these  investigations  that 
the  present  pages  are  to  be  devoted. 

In  order  that  the  highest  degree  of  efficiency 
may  be  secured  in  industrial  work,  it  would  seem 
obvious  that  certain  fundamental  conditions  should 
be  fulfilled.     These  include  the  following : 

1.  Workers  should  be  qualified  for  the  work 
that  they  are  to  do. 

2.  Workers  should  produce  a  daily  output  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  individual  capacities  for  work. 

3.  Workers  should  maintain  their  working  power 
from  day  to  day  and  from  week  to  week. 

4.  Workers,  once  they  are  proved  competent, 
should  be  retained. 

These  conditions  seem  axiomatic,  and  yet  they 
are  rarely  fulfilled.  In  the  following  pages  I  pro- 
pose to  consider  them,  as  well  as  certain  other 
topics  relating  to  the  human  machine  in  industry. 


II 

THE  QUALIFICATIONS  OF  WORKERS 

Modern  industry  makes  an  infinite  variety  of 
demands  on  the  physical  and  mental  qualifica- 
tions of  its  workers.  The  number  of  different 
operations  that  are  required  in  any  branch  of  a 
single  manufacture  are  little  known  to  the  lay- 
man. The  simple  assembling  of  the  various  parts 
of  the  engine  of  an  automobile  consists  of  some 
two  hundred  distinct  manipulations,  and  with 
the  modern  division  of  labor  these  can  most  ad- 
vantageously be  assigned  to  at  least  an  equal 
number  of  operatives.  Before  the  assembling 
come  the  thousands  of  tasks  involved  in  the  man- 
ufacture of  the  different  parts.  It  is  reported  of 
one  large  factory  that  in  the  process  of  manufac- 
turing its  goods  more  than  a  half  million  different 
acts  must  be  performed.  Wherever  these  varied 
acts  are  performed  by  machinery  the  use  of  ma- 
chines not  properly  adapted  to  the  work  would 
obviously  be  inexcusable.  The  time  and  thought 
that  are  given  to  the  invention  and  perfection  of 
machines  and   the   determination   of   the   ways 

5 


6  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

by  which  they  can  be  handled  most  efficiently  are 
a  measure  of  the  demands  for  mechanical  fitness 
that  are  made  by  the  industrial  manager. 

To  the  qualifications  of  the  human  machine, 
however,  the  manager  usually  gives  little  prelim- 
inary attention.  The  custom  frequently  is  to  hire 
with  but  little  previous  examination  whoever  ap- 
plies for  a  position,  assign  him  to  a  particular  task, 
and  learn  then  what  he  is  capable  of — a  method 
that  imposes  upon  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the 
manufactured  product  the  possibility  of  his  failure. 
The  cost  of  this  failure  manifested  in  misused  time 
and  spoiled  work  would  be  saved  if  the  worker, 
before  being  given  valuable  raw  material,  would 
be  made  to  prove  his  qualifications  by  proper 
tests. 

From  various  directions,  especially  from  the 
psychological  laboratories,  come  suggestions  of 
methods  for  determining  special  vocational  fitness. 
The  work  of  Miinsterberg  (3)  is  well  known,  in 
which  he  describes  simple  tests  for  memory, 
attention,'  intelligence,  exactitude  and  rapidity 
in  the  case  of  telephone  operators,  and  attention 
tests  with  motormen  in  street  railway  service.  It 
must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  whole  matter 
of  ascertaining  occupational  aptitudes  is  still  in  its 
infancy,  and  the  laboratories  and  factories  are 
still  far  removed  from  really  adequate  methods. 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  WORKERS      7 

There  are  here  needed  both  analyses  of  the  tasks 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  what  human  qualifica- 
tions they  require,  and  adequate  tests  to  determine 
whether  individuals  possess  the  required  quali- 
fications. Hollingworth  (4),  in  a  recent  survey 
of  the  topic  of  vocational  psychology,  while  recog- 
nizing that  "  there  are  some  twenty  types  of  work 
for  which  tests  have  already  been  proposed,  rec- 
ommended, and  more  or  less  tentatively  tried," 
concludes  that  "  the  reliable  vocational  psycho- 
graph,  which  proceeds  by  means  of  a  careful  pre- 
liminary analysis  of  the  qualities  required  in  the 
given  work,  and  uses  specially  adapted  tests  with 
reliable  norms  for  their  evaluation,  is  not  yet 
available  for  any  single  occupation.  The  pre- 
liminary analyses,  so  far  made,  whether  by  em- 
ployer, psychologist,  or  engineer,  give  us  little 
guidance,  and  until  such  guidance  is  forthcoming 
the  special  adaptation  of  tests  and  the  accumula- 
tion of  norms  and  standards  cannot  make  much 
practical  progress."  Here  is  needed  above  all 
else  the  aid  of  the  laboratories,  both  within  and 
without  industrial  establishments,  and  in  per- 
forming the  task  the  two  sciences  of  physiology 
and  psychology  must  work  hand  in  hand. 

But  notwithstanding  the  present  lack,  the  war 
has  brought  into  prominence  certain  methods  that 
promise  to  be  valuable.     The  general  intelligence 


8  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

tests  which  our  army  has  adopted  are  affording 
data  for  the  mental  classification  of  our  soldiers. 
Our  aviation  service,  by  means  of  carefully  planned 
and  conducted  physiological  and  psychological  ex- 
periments, is  determining  standards  by  means  of 
which  the  capabilities  of  our  aviators  at  different 
altitudes  and  for  different  varieties  of  service  will 
become  known.    Lovett  and  Martin's  (5)  spring- 
balance  muscle  test,  originally  designed  for  the 
determination  of  the  degree  of  recovery  in  muscles 
paralyzed  in  poliomyelitis,  has,  during  the  past  ten 
months,  been  used  with  excellent  results  in  our 
munition  factories.     This  consists  in  measuring, 
by  a  very  simple  and  quickly  applied  method,  the 
strength  of  certain  selected  groups  of  muscles  and 
computing  from  the  figures  thus  obtained  the  total 
strength  of  the  individual.     Individuals  are  then 
classified    into    four    groups:     the    exceptionally 
strong,  the  strong,  the  moderately  strong,  and  the 
weak.     The  use  of  this  test  by  Professor  Martin 
under  the  Public  Health  Service  (1)  has  disclosed 
the  fact  that  different  specific  industrial  operations 
have  different  specific  standards  of  strength,  as  is 
illustrated  by  the  following  table: 

Operation  Average 

_  _  Strength 

MEN  et  Pounds 

Rivet  dipping 4g7Q 

Rivet  trucking 4g30 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  WORKERS      9 

_.  Average 

Operation  _ 

Strength 

Men  in  Pounds 

Hot  forging 4370 

Rivet  shoveling 4260 

Coal  passing 4230 

Capstan  lathe  (day  shift) 4180 

Planish  seat 3930 

Foremen 3770 

Powder  loading 3700 

Women 

Drilling  flash  holes 2370 

Mill  percussion  flash 1780 

Welsbach  foot  press 1640 

Drilling  diagonal  holes 1630 

It  is  obvious  that  if  the  strength  of  any  worker 
consistently  falls  much  below  the  standard  for  the 
task  to  which  he  has  been  assigned,  he  is  under- 
taking work  for  which  he  is  not  physically  fitted; 
and  if  his  strength  is  markedly  greater  than  that  of 
his  task  he  is  not  economically  placed.  These  dis- 
advantages in  assigning  the  worker  to  the  task 
that  is  unsuited  to  his  strength  could  be  avoided 
if  the  spring-balance  test  should  come  into  general 
industrial  use. 


Ill 

OUTPUT  AND  FATIGUE 

A  careful  study  of  the  hourly  and  daily  output 
of  individual  workers  in  specific  tasks  throws 
much  light  upon  the  general  problem  of  the  human 
machine  in  industry  and  its  efficiency  (6).  Such  a 
study  is  being  made  in  some  of  our  munition  fac- 
tories by  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service  working 
in  cooperation  with  the  Committees  on  Industrial 
Fatigue  under  the  National  Research  Council  and 
the  Advisory  Commission  of  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defense  (1). 

The  manufacture  of  fuses  for  explosive  shells 
offers  excellent  opportunities  for  the  study.  In 
the  making  of  a  single  fuse  several  hundred  sepa- 
rate operations  are  required,  and  these  are  usually 
assigned  to  at  least  as  many  different  workers. 
The  work  is  repetitive;  each  operation  is  compara- 
tively brief  and  simple  and  is  repeated  successively 
throughout  the  whole  working  period  as  the  con- 
stant train  of  similar  parts  passes  before  the 
worker,  who  may  thus  perform  his  task  several 
thousand  times  between  morning  and  night.     In 

10 


OUTPUT  AND  FATIGUE  11 

most  of  the  operations  a  non-living  and  a  human 
machine  combine.  An  automatic  recorder  or  an 
observer  may  record  the  number  of  times  the 
operation  is  performed,  or  the  number  of  pieces 
completed  may  either  be  counted  or  be  calcu- 
lated from  the  weight  of  the  product.  A  conveni- 
ent unit  of  time  for  the  measurements  is  one  hour. 
It  is  thus  easy  to  obtain  the  curve  of  output 
throughout  the  working  period. 

This  curve  is  found  to  vary  with  the  character 
of  the  work.  Of  operations  that  require  careful 
attention  and  exact  muscular  coordination,  that 
of  applying  lacquer  to  certain  screw-holes  of  the 
fuse  is  typical.  Such  a  curve  showing  the  hourly 
distribution  of  the  work  of  women  during  a  ten- 
hour  period  of  the  day  shift,  is  reproduced  in  Fig.  1 . 
The  work  began  at  7  o'clock  in  the  morning  and 
continued  until  12  o'clock  noon;  there  was  then  a 
break  of  one  hour  for  luncheon  and  recreation; 
the  afternoon  work  began  at  1  and  ended  at  6 
o'clock.  The  average  number  of  pieces  handled 
by  each  person  during  the  day  was  6250,  of  which 
3250  were  finished  in  the  forenoon  and  3000  in  the 
afternoon.  The  output,  which  began  well,  in- 
creased during  the  first  two  hours  of  the  forenoon 
spell  and  bjr  9  o'clock  had  reached  a  maximum  11 
per  cent  above  the  product  of  the  first  hour;  it 
then  decreased  at  almost  a  constant  rate  through- 


12 


THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 


out  the  remainder  of  the  spell  and  by  noon  had 
fallen  6  per  cent  below  the  record  for  the  first  hour 
and  17  per  cent  below  the  maximum.    The  curve 


)    '    i    '    i    '    i 


LUNCH 


I     '     i     '     I     '     i     '     I 


10       11        12        1 


6 


Fig.  1. — Curve  of  output  in  painting  screw-holes  with  lacquer, 
an  industrial  operation  that  requires  careful  attention  and 
exact  muscular  coordination.  The  height  of  each  point  in 
the  curve  above  the  base  line  represents  the  output  of 
the  corresponding  hour.  Women  workers;  day  work;  10- 
hour  shift.  (By  courtesy  of  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Ser- 
vice.) 


of  the  afternoon  spell  shows  a  general  form  similar 
to  that  of  the  morning  but  with  quantitative  dif- 
ferences; the  first  hour's  production  is  greater  than 


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OUTPUT  AND  FATIGUE  13 

that  of  the  last  hour  of  the  morning;  but  the  rise 
to  the  maximum  is  less  and  the  subsequent  fall 
much  greater.  The  output  of  the  final  hour  in- 
deed is  32  per  cent  less  than  that  of  the  maximum 
for  the  day,  and  the  total  output  of  the  afternoon 
is  4  per  cent  less  than  that  of  the  forenoon. 

The  interpretation  of  such  a  curve  on  a  physio- 
logical basis  is  aided  by  the  consideration  of  cer- 
tain other  physiological  phenomena.  The  curve 
of  each  spell  is  not  unlike  the  curve  of  output  of  a 
single  isolated  muscle  contracting  upon  being  arti- 
ficially stimulated  at  regular  intervals  and  lifting 
a  given  load  (Fig.  2).  In  the  muscle  curve  the 
preliminary  rise,  called  the  "  treppe  "  or  "  stair- 
case," represents  an  improvement  in  working 
power  due  to  chemical  and  physical  changes  within 
the  muscle ;  the  gradual  fall  represents  the  diminu- 
tion of  working  power  involved  in  fatigue,  which 
is  due  in  turn  to  chemical  and  physical  changes 
within  the  muscle.  These  events  within  the  mus- 
cle are  purely  objective  phenomena;  in  the  human 
machine  there  are  added  to  the  objective  muscular 
contractions  the  subjective  phenomena  of  the 
nervous  system,  which  complicates  the  physiologi- 
cal situation  enormously.  Nevertheless  the  ap- 
parent similarity  between  the  two  curves  suggests, 
although  it  does  not  make  certain,  a  similar  funda- 
mental interpretation.    The  rise  in  the  curve  of 


14  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

output  of  the  human  machine  is  commonly  called 
the  "  practice  effect.''  It  probably  represents 
mainly  a  real  increase  in  working  power,  resulting 
from  improved  focussing  of  attention  and  better 
neuromuscular  coordination,  and,  were  our  knowl- 
edge Sufficiently  complete,  it  probably  could  be  cor- 
related with  chemical  and  physical  changes  within 
the  body.  The  fall  in  the  human  curve  probably 
consists  in  considerable  part  of  an  actual  decrease 
of  working  power,  caused  by  fatigue,  although  a 
voluntary,  wilful  lessening  of  work  may  enter  into 
it.  The  increased  output  immediately  after  lunch- 
eon is  the  expression  of  the  increase  in  working 
power  that  results  from  food  and  rest.  The  greater 
final  fall  in  the  afternoon,  as  compared  with  the 
morning,  spell  probably  represents  in  great  part 
the  cumulative  fatigue  of  the  day. 

Certain  tests  more  objective  than  that  of  output 
have  recently  demonstrated  also  that  fatigue  re- 
sults from  the  day's  work.  The  spring-balance 
muscle  test  (5)  applied  at  the  beginning  and  the  end 
of  the  day's  labor  in  some  of  our  munition  factories 
shows  that  the  work  of  the  more  strenuous  opera- 
tions results  usually  in  a  diminution  of  the  total 
strength  of  all  the  workers;  in  operations  requiring 
moderate  exertion  only  the  weaker  workers  show 
the  effect.  A  day  in  which  the  worker  for  any 
intrinsic  reason  possesses  less  strength  than  usual 


OUTPUT  AND   FATIGUE  15 

is  apt  to  be  followed  by  a  day  showing  more  than 
the  usual  fatigue;  and  a  day  of  severe  fatigue  by 
one  of  lessened  strength.  On  days  when  the 
strength  test  shows  high  figures  output  tends  also 
to  be  high,  and  vice  versa. 

Ryan's  (7)  vascular  skin  reaction  test  consists 
in  making,  with  a  suitable  blunt  instrument,  a 
stroke  on  the  skin  of  the  forearm  and  noting  by 
means  of  a  stop-watch  the  time  that  elapses 
between  the  moment  of  the  stimulation  and  the 
moment  at  which  the  white  streak  thus  caused 
begins  to  fade.  This  time  is  shorter  in  the 
fatigued  person.  The  test  is  applied  several  times 
daily.  The  curve  of  duration  of  the  streak  falls 
during  the  forenoon  indicating  fatigue,  rises  some- 
what during  the  luncheon  hour  indicating  restora- 
tion, and  falls  again  to  a  minimum  during  the 
afternoon.  If  the  subject  spends  the  half  day 
resting  instead  of  working,  the  fatigue  fall  of  the 
curve  does  not  occur  and  a  rise  may  result.  Pro- 
fessor Ryan  is  now  making,  under  the  Public 
Health  Service,  an  extensive  experimental  study 
of  the  applicability  of  this  test  to  the  conditions  of 
industrial  work. 

Kent  (8)  has  demonstrated  a  certain  degree  of 
lessened  acuity  of  both  sight  and  hearing  as  the 
result  of  the  day's  work  in  the  factory,  but  how 
general  this  is  cannot  now  be  said. 


16  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

Hastings  (1),  in  a  series  of  observations  extend- 
ing over  several  months  under  the  Public  Health 
Service,  finds  that  the  urine  of  day  workers  in 
munition  factories  possesses  a  higher  degree  of 
concentration  of  hydrogen  ions  in  the  evening  as 
compared  with  the  morning.  That  this  sign  of 
acidosis  is  also  a  sign  of  fatigue  is  indicated  by 
control  observations  on  resting  subjects,  in  whom 
there  is  a  slight  decrease  in  the  same  ions  during 
the  day. 

All  these  recent  observations  agree  in  demon- 
strating by  objective  methods  that  fatigue  is 
present  at  the  end  of  the  day's  labor  and  they 
justify  the  assumption  that  the  fall  in  the  curve 
of  output  is  a  sign,  in  part  at  least,  of  fatigue. 
Additional  methods  of  revealing  such  fatigue  are, 
however,  desired.  The  difficulties  of  applying  any 
method  to  industrial  workers,  who  are  unac- 
quainted with  scientific  experimentation  and  many 
of  whom  are  impatient  of  devoting  their  time  to 
mysteries  of  the  meaning  of  which  they  are  igno- 
rant, are  much  greater  than  with  trained  labora- 
tory subjects. 

Not  all  curves  of  daily  output  are  as  simple  as 
that  presented.  In  operations  that  require  con- 
siderable muscular  strength  a  curve  (Fig.  3)  is 
sometimes  seen  in  which  for  each  spell  there 
appears  no  practice  effect,  but  a  continuous  fall, 


OUTPUT  AND  FATIGUE  17 


LUNCH 


7  8  9  10  11  12  12  3  4  5 
Fig.  3. — Curve  of  output  in  polishing  metal  by  hand,  an  indus- 
trial operation  that  requires  considerable  muscular  strength. 
The  height  of  each  point  in  the  curve  above  the  base  lino 
represents  the  output  of  the  corresponding  hour.  Men 
workers;  day  work;  10-hour  shift.  (By  courtesy  of  the 
U.  S.  Public  Health  Service.) 


18  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

often  broken,  however,  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
spell  by  a  brief  temporary  rise,  indicating  a  spurt 
on  the  part  of  the  worker.  The  fall  is  often  very 
marked  and  the  significance  of  the  spurt  is  not 
clear.  Where  work  is  monotonous  and  inter- 
rupted by  frequent  rests,  outputs  have  been 
observed  the  curves  of  which  for  each  spell  are 
undulating,  but  show  little,  if  any,  distinct  fatigue 
fall.  Many  other  forms  of  curves  have  been 
seen,  but  sufficient  data  have  not  yet  been  accumu- 
lated to  allow  a  classification  into  types. 

The  very  frequent  indication  of  fatigue  in  a 
study  of  output  and  the  recognition  that  fatigue 
is  an  enemy  to  high  production  bring  fatigue  into 
great  prominence  in  any  study  of  industrial  effi- 
ciency (9).  A  certain  degree  of  fatigue  is  the  ex- 
pected result  of  a  day's  work;  it  is  normal;  and 
when  it  is  not  revealed  in  the  output  it  is  question- 
able whether  the  individual  is  approximating  his 
capacity  as  nearly  as  he  should  approach  it. 
When,  however,  the  curve  of  output  does  show  a 
falling-off  it  is  not  necessarily  a  sign  that  fatigue 
has  become  excessive  and  it  does  not  necessarily 
convey  a  warning  that  the  output  should  be  cut 
down.  It  is  always  allowable  to  consider  whether 
output  may  not  even  be  increased  by  altering  the 
conditions  of  the  work. 


IV 
SECONDARY  SOURCES  OF  FATIGUE 

If  a  search  after  ways  of  eliminating  fatigue 
is  to  be  thorough  the  individual  worker  should  be 
carefully  observed  and  the  conditions  of  his  task 
should  be  carefully  analyzed.  Such  an  analysis 
reveals  that  there  are  primary  and  secondary 
sources  of  fatigue.  The  primary  source  of  fatigue 
lies  in  the  performance  of  the  essential  part  of  the 
operation  itself  involving  the  transformation  of  a 
definite  amount  of  energy.  This  is  the  irreducible 
minimum,  stripped  of  all  non-essential  accompani- 
ments. It  is  sometimes  possible,  as  will  be  shown 
later,  to  measure  with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy  the 
amount  of  work  performed  in  this  essential  part 
of  the  operation  and  thus  determine  the  primary 
fatiguing  capacity  of  the  task.  This  source  of 
fatigue  is  unavoidable. 

But  it  is  different  with  the  secondary  sources  of 
fatigue.  These  comprise  certain  actions  and  bodily 
positions  which  accompany  but  are  not  needed 
in  performing  the  task,  together  with  certain  other 
environmental  conditions  under  which  the  task  is 
performed.     Gilbreth  (\0)   found  that  with  the 

19 


20  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

customary  way  of  laying  bricks  eighteen  motions 
were  employed  in  laying  a  single  brick,  but  eleven 
of  these  could  be  omitted  altogether,  and  some  of 
the  others  could  be  combined,  so  that  the  required 
motions  were  reduced  to  one  and  three-quarters. 
The  material  and  the  tools  which  the  worker  uses 
are  often  placed  at  a  distance  from  his  hands  and 
not  where  he  can  get  them  with  the  least  possible 
movement  and  expenditure  of  energy.  A  worker 
is  often  forced  to  stand  at  his  work,  when  he  might 
more  economically  sit.  Stools  are  less  efficient  as 
labor  savers  than  are  chairs;  and  a  chair  should 
have  an  adjustable  back.  A  high  chair  should  be 
provided  with  an  adjustable  foot  rest,  especially 
with  women  workers.  The  rate  of  a  factory 
machine  run  by  power  is  usually  set  more  or  less 
arbitrarily  and  the  worker  is  expected  to  conform 
to  it,  although  his  own  neuromuscular  rhythm,  the 
rhythm  at  which  he  can  do  his  best  work,  may  be 
slower.  Such  conditions  of  work,  while  they  may 
appear  trivial,  nevertheless,  may  cause  needless 
muscular  contractions,  needless  or  unwise  expen- 
diture of  energy,  and  thus  may  add  to  the  fatigue 
of  the  worker.  Their  avoidance  is  usually  a  very 
simple  matter  (11). 

Other  environmental  contributing  causes  of 
fatigue  relate  to  illumination,  ventilation,  food, 
and  various  sanitary  conditions. 


SECONDARY  SOURCES  OF  FATIGUE     21 

Here  may  be  mentioned  lack  of  sufficient  illumi- 
nation, misplaced  artificial  lights,  and  location 
of  workers  and  machines  so  as  not  to  secure 
the  full  benefit  of  window  lighting.  Even  when 
general  illumination  is  sufficient  a  glare  of  light 
on  the  work  bench  or  the  material  may  be 
harmful. 

Lack  of  proper  ventilation  (12)  is  a  frequent 
condition  of  unnecessary  fatigue.  The  investiga- 
tors of  the  Public  Health  Service  (1)  have  found 
that  the  different  members  of  a  group  of  workers 
on  the  same  job  frequently  show  similar  varia- 
tions in  total  strength;  and  the  same  is  shown  by 
different  groups  of  workers  who  have  different 
jobs  but  similar  external  environments.  Such 
facts  indicate  that  strength  is  affected  by  exter- 
nal influences,  and  the  investigators  have  found 
that  air  temperatures  of  85°  F.,  or  above,  espe- 
cially when  maintained  for  several  days,  reduce 
the  worker's  strength.  My  colleague,  Dr.  Scott, 
and  I  (13)  have  shown  by  a  series  of  experiments 
on  animals  that  the  heat  and  humidity  of  the 
air  diminish  muscular  power.  At  an  average 
temperature  of  69°  F.  (21°  C.)  and  an  average 
humidity  of  52  per  cent  the  total  amount  of  work 
that  could  be  performed  by  certain  selected  mus- 
cles before  they  were  exhausted  was  regarded  as 
100  per  cent;  after  the  animals  had  been  exposed 


22  THE   HUMAN  MACHINE 

for  six  hours  to  an  "  intermediate  "  condition  of 
temperature  of  75°  F.  (24°  C.)  and  humidity 
of  70  per  cent  the  total  work  possible  fell  to 
85  per  cent,  and  after  a  "  high  "  condition  of 
91°  F.  (33°  C.)  and  humidity  of  90  per  cent,  the 
work  dropped  to  76  per  cent.  Not  only  a  hot  and 
humid  but  a  still  atmosphere  is  bad;  the  air  of 
the  working  place  should  be  reasonably  cool, 
moderately  dry,  and  kept  in  motion  (14).  An  ab- 
solutely constant  temperature  is  not  so  beneficial 
as  one  that  is  varied.  The  enervating  effect  of  a 
high  temperature  may  be  much  avoided  by  the 
use  of  electric  fans.  A  purely  artificial  system 
of  ventilation  is  probably  never  so  efficient  as  one 
that  makes  use  also  of  open  windows,  with  their 
possibilities  of  playing  upon  the  skin  a  variable  air 
supply.  Variety  is  one  of  the  essentials  of  good 
ventilation. 

Lack  of  adequate  and  properly  selected  and 
cooked  food  is  a  frequent  obstacle  to  high  pro- 
ductivity. (See  page  84.)  The  same  may  be 
said  of  a  lack  of  adequate  bathing  and  toilet 
facilities.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  these  aids 
to  cleanliness  are  to  be  considered  as  mere 
needless  luxuries.  If  the  human  machine  is  to 
be  in  its  best  working  condition  it  must  be  kept 
clean  within  and  without. 


SECONDARY  SOURCES  OF  FATIGUE     23 

While  these  causes  of  fatigue  are  secondary  they 
are  none  the  less  real  and  their  elimination  con- 
duces to  the  greater  productivity  of  the  human 
machine. 


V 

RESTING  PERIODS 

The  obvious  physiological  antidote  to  fatigue 
is  rest.  The  effect  of  a  resting  period  in  a  single 
muscle  is  strikingly  shown  by  an  easily  performed 
laboratory  experiment  on  an  animal  (Fig.  4). 
If  the  muscle  be  stimulated  by  a  series  of  gentle 
electric  shocks  a  record  of  its  contractions  can 
readily  be  made  on  a  revolving  drum.  Such 
a  record  shows,  after  a  few  minutes,  a  diminution 
in  the  extent  of  the  contractions  because  of 
fatigue.  If  then  the  stimuli  cease,  and  a  rest 
is  allowed,  the  working  power  of  the  muscle  is 
largely  restored.  The  blood  has  washed  out  of 
the  tissue  the  accumulated  toxic  fatigue  sub- 
stances, has  brought  to  the  wearied  cells  food  and 
oxygen,  and  they  are  prepared  again  to  undertake 
their  labor.  In  such  an  experiment,  which  can 
be  performed  painlessly  upon  a  frog,  the  condi- 
tions of  work  are  purposely  exaggerated,  but  the 
principle  of  the  value  of  resting  periods  thus  illus- 
trated is  applicable  directly  to  industrial  labor. 

In  industry  the  resting  period  is  a  necessity,  and 
24 


RESTING   PERIODS  25 

one  of  the  first  questions  that  press  for  consider- 
ation is  that  of  the  most  advantageous  length  and 
distribution  of  resting  in  relation  to  working  peri- 
ods. Mankind  long  ago  decided  that  the  working 
day  should  be  cut  into  halves  and  that  one  hour  of 
rest  with  luncheon  should  separate  the  two  spells; 
and  further  that  school  children  ought  to  have 
additional  recess  periods.  Industry  accepts  the 
luncheon  period,  often  shortening  it,  however, 
by  one-quarter,  one-half,  and  sometimes  two- 
thirds  of  the  conventional  horn';  but  is  loath  to 
believe  that  additional  resting  periods  may  be 
advantageous.  The  value  of  the  luncheon  period 
in  increasing  output  is  sufficiently  demonstrated 
by  such  graphic  evidence  as  is  furnished  by  Figs. 
1  and  2,  where  there  was  a  pronounced  rise  in  the 
curve  of  production  following  the  noon  rest.  As 
to  the  length  of  the  luncheon  period  both  experi- 
ence and  physiology  plainly  teach,  I  believe,  that 
it  should  not  be  less  than  one  hour  whatever  the 
length  of  the  working  period.  No  one  can  long 
continue  to  be  proof  against  the  direful  effects  of 
the  quick  lunch. 

As  to  additional  resting  periods  indisputable 
evidence  also  has  been  accumulated  of  their  real 
value  to  the  employer  by  increasing  output.  The 
first  exact  studies  in  this  direction  were  those  of 
Taylor  (15)  twenty  years  ago,  who  measured  with 


26  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

a  stop-watch  the  time  during  which  a  worker  in  a 
given  simple  operation  was  actually  working. 
Taylor's  subject  of  observation,  Schmidt,  bids  fair 
to  be  one  of  those  immortal  characters  which  we 
sometimes  meet  in  scientific  literature,  immor- 
talized because  of  their  submission  to  experimen- 
tation that  makes  possible  important  scientific 
advance.  It  was  Schmidt's  task  to  pick  from  a 
pile  of  pig  iron  on  the  ground  a  single  pig,  weighing 
about  92  pounds,  carry  this  up  an  inclined  plank 
and  drop  it  upon  a  railway  car,  and  this  task  was 
repeated  all  day  long.  Though  simple  it  was  a 
heavy  muscular  task,  and  Schmidt  usually  han- 
dled about  12.5  tons  of  iron  in  the  day.  Taylor 
found,  by  "  experiments  "  he  says,  although  the 
nature  of  the  experiments  is  not  fully  revealed, 
that  in  such  work  a  first-class  laborer  should  be 
under  load  only  42  per  cent  of  the  day,  and  free 
from  load  during  the  remainder  of  the  time.  With 
the  usual  manner  of  working  there  was  no  assur- 
ance that  this  proportion  was  adhered  to.  A 
change  was  then  introduced:  Schmidt  was  put 
under  strict  orders;  his  movements  were  timed  by  a 
stop-watch;  and  after  loading  ten  to  twenty  pigs 
he  was  required  to  rest  for  a  definite  time.  With 
such  a  system  of  alternating  work  and  rest  periods 
it  was  found  that  he  was  able  to  load  in  one  day, 
and  to  continue  to  load  day  after  day  without 


RESTING   PERIODS  27 

detriment,  not  12.5  tons  as  before,  but  47  tons,  an 
increase  of  266  per  cent. 

The  investigators  of  the  U.  S.  Public  Health 
Service  (1)  have  introduced  into  certain  operations 
in  one  of  our  munition  factories  a  recess  of  ten 
minutes  in  each  spell  of  the  ten-hour  day.  The 
observations  are  not  yet  completed,  but  they 
show  at  the  present  date  almost  invariably  an 
increase  in  the  output.  For  example,  in  a  solder- 
ing operation  three  successive  periods  of  two  or 
three  weeks  each  after  the  introduction  of  the 
recess  periods  revealed  an  average  increase  in  pro- 
duction of  3,  17  and  26  per  cent  respectively.  In 
another  factory,  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
automobiles,  where  an  eight-hour  day  prevails  and 
working  up  to  capacity  is  regularly  expected,  a  ten- 
minute  recess,  although  followed  by  a  temporary 
acceleration,  resulted  usually  in  a  slight  fall  in  the 
average  total  output  of  the  shift.  The  American 
investigators  have  recognized  the  difficulties  in 
obtaining  exact  statistics  of  the  effect  of  recess 
periods  alone,  uncontaminated  by  that  of  other 
possible  variables,  such  as  workers,  machines,  and 
materials.  The  value  of  resting  periods  in  a  war 
operation  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  a  British 
incident,  in  which  two  squads  of  soldiers,  equal  in 
number,  were  ordered  to  dig  equal  lengths  of  a 
certain  trench.     All  the  men  of  one  squad  worked 


28  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

continuously  and  as  hard  as  possible.  The  men 
of  the  other  squad  were  divided  into  groups,  and 
each  group  dug  strenuously  during  five  minutes 
and  then  rested  ten  minutes.  This  organized 
squad  easily  finished  its  job  first. 

The  beneficial  effect  of  resting  periods  on  output 
is  thus  not  to  be  doubted,  although  further  evi- 
dence is  desired  regarding  their  optimum  duration, 
number  and  distribution  throughout  the  working 
period.  They  are  probably  of  greater  value  in 
strenuous  work  and  work  in  which  long  spells  pre-; 
vail.  The  extensive  experience  of  Vernon  of  the  in- 
vestigating staff  of  the  British  Health  of  Munition 
Workers  Committee  in  the  study  of  labor  in 
munition  factories  has  led  him  to  conclude  that 
"  A  spell  of  five  hours  is  probably  too  long  for 
almost  any  kind  of  labor."  Our  own  experience 
in  American  factories  leads  to  the  same  conclu- 
sion. But  with  a  short  working  day,  and 
especially  where  production  already  approximates 
capacity,  the  temporary  gain  resulting  from  a 
brief  rest  may  possibly  be  wiped  out  by  the  loss 
involved  in  the  time  actually  taken  from  work. 


VI 

THE  LENGTH  OF  THE  WORKING  DAY 

This  brings  us  naturally  to  the  problem  of  the 
length  of  the  working  day — perhaps  the  most 
vital  of  all  industrial  problems  in  a  consideration 
of  efficiency.  Here  the  difference  between  the 
non-living  and  the  human  machine  stands  out 
clearly.  Given  the  proper  rate,  the  proper  load 
and  the  proper  lubrication,  with  the  non-living 
machine  one  hour  in  the  day  is  as  good  as 
another;  however  long  it  works,  there  is  no 
diminution  in  the  amount  of  its  product.  It  is 
not  so  with  the  human  machine,  with  its  curve 
of  output  varying  with  the  character  of  the  work 
and  the  capacity  of  the  worker,  and  falling  as 
fatigue  progresses.  When  long  hours  are  imposed 
upon  the  human  machine  the  average  amount  of 
work  done  per  hour  is  diminished.  This  is  largely 
an  unconscious  process.  It  is  obvious  that  there 
is  a  limit  to  the  working  period  and  it  is  obvious 
too  that  the  problem  of  its  proper  length  is  really 
a  problem  in  human  physiology.  In  attempting 
to  solve  this  problem  nothing  stands  out  more 

29 


30  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

clearly  than  the  fact  that  a  longer  working  day 
does  not  necessarily  mean  a  larger  output.  And 
yet  over  and  over  again  the  mistake  is  made  of 
increasing  the  hours  of  labor  when  greater  pro- 
duction is  desired,  just  as  if  the  worker's  body 
were  a  thing  of  unyielding  iron  and  brass,  instead 
of  living  and  fatiguing  tissues.  This  mistake  was 
made  in  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
when  the  human  machines  of  the  factories  were 
driven  until  they  broke.  The  attempt  to  impose 
the  same  mistake  upon  our  own  war  industries 
is  being  made  from  time  to  time.  It  is  not,  per- 
haps, of  chief  moment  that  a  few  lives  are  thus 
destroyed,  because  destruction  of  life  is  a  neces- 
sary feature  of  war;  but  it  is  forgotten  that  the 
war  emergency  is  a  matter  not  of  days,  but  of 
months  and  perhaps  of  years,  and  that  the  main- 
tenance of  the  working  power  of  the  industrial 
worker  throughout  months  and  years  is  as  essen- 
tial to  victory  as  is  the  existence  of  the  power 
to-day.  It  is  not,  therefore,  in  the  long  run  eco- 
nomical to  make  the  work  of  the  day  so  strenuous 
or  so  long  continued  as  to  diminish  the  work  of 
the  following  days  and  permanently  decrease 
output. 

In  deciding  the  proper  length  of  the  working 
period  the  two  factors  of  the  fatiguing  character 
of  the  work  and  the  capacity  of  the  individual 


LENGTH  OF  WORKING   DAY         31 

workers  should  be  taken  into  consideration  (16). 
One  operation  is  more  strenuous  than  another  and 
correspondingly  taxes  the  powers  of  the  worker 
more.  Moreover,  one  worker  becomes  fatigued 
more  readily  than  another.  Consideration  of  a 
period  longer  than  twelve  hours  may  be  at  once 
dismissed,  for  there  is  sufficient  evidence  that 
no  one  can  profitably  be  employed  in  any  task 
habitually  for  a  longer  time  than  twelve  hours. 
So  too  there  is  little  evidence  at  present  that,  for 
most  persons  capable  of  undertaking  industrial 
occupation  and  for  most  occupations,  eight  hours 
is  too  long  for  the  work,  although  I  am  quite  ready 
to  admit  that  this  latter  statement  may  be  sub- 
ject to  revision  in  the  future.  Discussion  may, 
however,  profitably  be  confined  for  the  present  to 
these  limits. 

Now  it  has  been  frequently  and  indubitably 
shown  that  a  shortening  of  the  period  from  the 
upper  toward  the  lower  limit  may  increase  not 
only  the  output  per  hour,  but  also  the  total  out- 
put. It  should  here  be  borne  in  mind  that,  while 
an  increase  in  total  production  in  a  shorter  time  is 
obviously  advantageous  to  the  employer,  it  is  not 
necessarily  disadvantageous  to  the  worker,  be- 
cause the  longer  resting  period  that  follows  gives 
him  a  better  opportunity  for  recuperation ;  there  is 
no  evidence  that  the  added  fatigue  involved  in  the 


32  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

greater  expenditure  of  energy  during  the  briefer 
but  more  strenuous  labor  overbalances  this  gain. 
Furthermore,  even  if  the  original  output  is  merely 
maintained  or  slightly  decreased  during  the  shorter 
period,  while  the  worker  still  gains  physiologically, 
the  employer  does  not  necessarily  lose  financially, 
for  the  cost  of  production  has  been  materially 
decreased  owing  to  the  saving  in  the  consumption 
of  mechanical  power,  lighting,  heating,  wear  and 
tear  of  machinery,  and  other  sources  of  expense 
that  vary  directly  with  the  length  of  the  working 
period. 

The  older  studies  relating  to  length  of  working 
period  and  output  are  well  known.  Prominent 
among  them,  because  of  the  care  with  which  they 
were  followed  and  the  fulness  with  which  they 
were  reported,  are  the  cases  of  the  Salford  Iron 
Works  at  Manchester,  England,  the  Engis  Chem- 
ical Works,  near  Liege,  Belgium,  and  the  Zeiss 
Optical  Works  at  Jena,  Germany.  At  the  Salford 
Iron  Works  (17)  the  working  week  was  shortened 
in  1893  from  fifty-three  to  forty-eight  hours  for  its 
1200  employees.  The  results  were  unmistakably 
in  favor  of  the  decrease:  Production  was  in- 
creased; the  proportion  of  time  lost  without  leave 
to  the  total  time  worked  was  decreased  from  2.46 
to  0.46  per  cent;  and,  although,  because  of  a  fall 
in  the  selling  price  of  the  goods,  which  happened 


LENGTH  OF  WORKING   DAY 


33 


to  occur  during  the  year  of  observation,  the  cost 
of  wages  increased  0.4  per  cent,  this  was  exactly 
balanced  by  a  saving  in  gas,  electric  lighting, 
wear  and  tear,  etc.  The  experiment  was  a  marked 
success,  and  assisted  in  the  reduction  to  a  forty- 
eight  hour  weekly  basis  of  the  work  in  the  British 
government  factories  and  workshops.  At  the 
Engis  Chemical  Works  (18)  in  1892  the  change  was 
made  from  a  two-shift  system  of  twelve-hour  peri- 
ods to  a  three-shift  system  of  eight-hour  periods, 
the  duration  of  actual  work  in  the  two  cases  being 
ten  and  seven  and  one-half  hours  respectively, 
with  the  result  that  in  the  shorter  time  the  same 
men  at  the  same  furnaces  with  the  same  tools  and 
raw  material  produced  as  much  as  before.  At 
the  Zeiss  Optical  Works  (19)  in  1900  the  working 
day  was  shortened  from  nine  to  eight  hours  with 
an  average  increase  of  about  3  per  cent  in  the 
daily  output  of  the  employees. 

Similar  evidence  has  been  accumulating  in  more 

Output  of  Employees  in  Shoe  Manufacture 


Period. 

Working  hours. 

Production  unit 

per  employee 

per  day,  based 

on  pairs  of  shoes 

shipped. 

October-November 

December- January 

55 
52 
52 

8.91 
9.00 

February-March 

9.02 

34 


THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 


recent  years.  An  American  company  (20)  em- 
ploying about  4000  hands,  both  men  and  women, 
in  the  manufacture  of  shoes,  reduced  its  weekly 
working  hours  in  December,  1916,  from  55  to  52, 
with  the  result  shown  in  table  on  p.  33. 

The  very  exact  measurements  by  Vernon  (21), 
under  the  British  Health  of  Munition  Workers 
Committee,  afford  most  valuable  evidence.  Re- 
duction of  the  actual  weekly  working  hours  of  a 
group  of  56  men,  engaged  in  the  heavy  labor  of 
sizing  fuse  bodies,  from  58.2  tp  51.2,  increased  the 
total  output  22  per  cent,  as  is  shown  in  the  accom- 
panying table. 

Output  of  Men  Engaged  in  Heavy  Work 


Average  Weekly 
Houh8. 

Relative 
hourly- 
output. 

Relative 
total 

Nominal. 

Actual. 

output. 

First  period 

66.7 
62.8 
56.5 

58.2 
50.5 
51.2 

100 
122 
139 

100 

Second  period 

Third  period 

106 
122 

With  80  to  100  women  performing  the  moderately 
heavy  labor  of  turning  aluminum  fuse  bodies  in  a 
lathe,  reduction  of  the  actual  working  hours  from 
a  weekly  average  of  66.2  to  54.8  resulted  in  a  gain 
of  11  per  cent  in  total  output;  with  a  subsequent 
reduction  to  45.6  hours  a  gain  of  9  per  cent  was 
still  maintained.    The  following  table  gives  the 


LENGTH  OF  WORKING   DAY 


35 


details.    Note  also  the  enormously  increased  hourly 
output. 

Output  of  Women  Turning  Aluminum  Fuse  Bodies 


Average  Weekly 
Hours. 

Relative 
hourly 
output. 

Relative 
total 

Nominal. 

Actual. 

output. 

First  period 

74.8 
61.5 
54.8 

66.2 
54.8 
45.6 

100 
134 
158 

100 

Second  period 

Third  periud 

111 

109 

A  third  instance,  illustrated  in  the  table  below,  is 
also  of  interest.  Here  40  women  performing  the 
light  labor  of  milling  a  screw  thread  on  fuse  bodies 
were  granted  a  reduction  in  working  time  amount- 
ing to  an  actual  weekly  average  of  26  per  cent. 
While  their  hourly  output  was  increased  by  the 
considerable  figure  of  33  per  cent  this  was  just 
insufficient  to  maintain  the  former  day's  rate, 
which  fell  by  1  per  cent. 


Output  of  Women  Milling  a  Screw  Thread 

Average  Weekly 
Hours. 

Relative 
hourly 
output. 

Relative 
total 

Nominal. 

Actual. 

output. 

First  period 

Second  period 

Third  period 

71.8 
64.6 
57.3 

64.9 
54.8 
48.1 

100 
121 
133 

100 
102 

99 

36  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

This  result  was  due  to  the  nature  of  the  task, 
which  was  chiefly  a  machine  operation  in  which 
the  worker  was  forced  to  stand  idly  watching  her 
machine  during  four-fifths  of  the  time  and  had  less 
opportunity  than  did  the  other  workers  for  quick- 
ening her  speed. 

These  varied  results  make  it  clear  that  reduc- 
tion in  working  hours,  other  conditions  remaining 
unchanged,  affects  production  primarily  in  pro- 
portion as  the  physiological  factor  enters  into  the 
work.  Here  operations  differ  greatly.  One  is 
treading  on  dangerous  ground  if  he  attempts  to 
predict  an  optimum  working-day  without  an 
analysis  of  the  work  itself.  The  fact  is  unmis- 
takable, however,  that  the  most  reliable  evidence 
at  present  points  toward  an  approximation  of  the 
eight-hour  working  day  as  affording  for  a  consid- 
erable variety  of  occupations  and  for  conscientious 
workers  the  best  condition  for  high  productivity. 
But  the  conclusion  that  an  eight-hour  day  is 
advisable  universally  in  the  industrial  world  must- 
be  regarded  for  the  present  as  an  assumption 
hardly  justified  by  the  facts.  The  movement 
toward  a  universal  eight-hour  day,  now  more  than 
sixty  years  old,  has  gained  great  headway  and  has 
led  to  the  correction  of  many  abuses.  It  should 
now  be  recognized  that  the  question  is  one  into 
which  physiology  should  step  and  that  before  a 


LENGTH  OF  WORKING  DAY        37 

decision  on  a  strictly  scientific  basis  can  be  reached 
much  further  observation  is  needed. 

Here  I  would  utter  a  warning  against  the  danger 
of  accepting  mere  opinion  not  based  upon  actual 
facts.  If  the  effect  of  a  reduction  of  hours  on 
output  is  to  be  determined,  it  should  be  deter- 
mined in  the  same  manner  in  which  the  result  of 
any  exact  scientific  inquiry  is  sought.  Conjec- 
tural estimates  of  output  are  of  no  value;  quanti- 
tative measurement  alone  is  decisive.  Not  until 
reliable  statistics  are  obtained  with  the  longer 
working  period  should  the  reduction  in  time  be 
made.  Then,  in  so  far  as  possible,  only  the  time 
factor  should  be  changed.  In  both  the  control 
and  the  experimental  series  of  observations,  all 
possible  variables  but  the  time  factor  should  be 
avoided,  or  should  be  allowed  for  if  avoidance  is 
not  possible.  These  variables  may  include  the 
number  of  employees  actually  working,  the  replace- 
ment of  skilled  by  unskilled  workers,  the  time  lost, 
a  change  in  the  quality  of  the  material,  a  change  in 
methods  of  working,  and  seasonal  and  other  pos- 
sibilities. Moreover,  observations  should  extend 
over  a  period  of  at  least  several  months  before  a 
conclusion  is  finally  drawn.  All  effort  indeed 
toward  determining  the  effects  of  a  reduction  in 
the  working  hours  in  any  factory  or  any  industry 
is  wasted  unless  care  is  taken  to  conduct  the  inves- 


38  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

tigation  after   the  manner  of  an  exact  scientific 
experiment.* 

*  The  National  Industrial  Conference  Board  (54)  is  en- 
gaged in  a  study  of  the  effect  on  output  of  the  reduction 
of  working  hours  in  various  industries,  and  has  published 
to  date  the  results  of  its  inquiries  into  the  manufacture  of 
cotton  and  of  shoes.  Unfortunately  the  data  were  obtained 
largely  by  the  unreliable  method  of  the  questionnaire,  rather 
than  by  that  of  exact  measurement.  Inferences  drawn  from 
such  data  can  hardly  be  accepted  as  conclusive. 


VII 

CAPACITY  AND   THE   SELF-LIMITATION  OF 
OUTPUT 

There  is  one  feature  of  labor  which  I  believe 
to  be  one  of  the  most  potent  and  most  universal 
foes  to  efficiency.  Natural  working  power  varies 
infinitely  in  individuals,  and  yet  no  one  will,  I 
think,  dispute  the  statement  that  few  persons  work 
up  to  their  individual  capacities.  Professor  Wil- 
liam James  (22),  clear-sighted  observer  and  keen 
thinker,  once  said  that  "  As  a  rule  men  habitually 
use  only  a  small  part  of  the  powers  which  they 
actually  possess  and  which  they  might  use  under 
appropriate  conditions."  This  general  human 
tendency  is  found  also  among  industrial  workers. 
It  is  even  traditional  with  many  and  a  thing  to  be 
encouraged,  especially  with  those  who  have  worked 
for  years  and  have  become  accustomed  to  the  tra- 
ditional ways  of  labor.  It  is  sometimes  called,  in 
this  country,  "  soldiering  "  and,  in  Great  Britain, 
"  ca'  canny."  It  may  be  a  conscious,  wilful  pro- 
cedure, or  it  may  be  partly  or  even  wholly  uncon- 
scious. Many  honest  workers  will  tell  you  that  it 
is  deliberate.     It  is  sometimes  ascribed  to  labor 

39 


40  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

unions  as  a  deliberate  policy,  but  it  is  found  among 
non-union  workers  as  well.  The  American  investi- 
gators (1)  have  found  that  it  occurs  very  commonly 
in  the  form  of  what  they  have  called  "  stereotyping 
of  output,"  that  is,  a  form  of  output  in  which  the 
same  individual  or  a  group  of  individuals  will  turn 
out  day  after  day  and  week  after  week  practically 
the  same  quantity  of  finished  product.  In  one 
munition  factory  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
fuses  a  large  proportion  of  the  force  was  thus  work- 
ing. In  forming  at  a  capstan  lathe  the  large  end 
of  the  fuse  one  man  finished  exactly  1000  pieces 
on  each  of  44  nights  out  of  45  that  were  observed; 
in  gauging  the  fuses  5  girls  out  of  6  that  were 
studied  for  one  week,  examined  1315  fuses  each 
day;  in  99  cases  of  drilling  certain  holes,  out  of  163 
observations  extending  over  seventeen  days,  1300 
fuses  were  drilled  by  each  battery  of  two  operatives 
in  each  spell,  and  2600  in  each  day;  and  in  an- 
other drilling  operation  the  output  of  each  of  16 
different  workers,  night  after  night,  for  one  week 
was  3600,  no  more  and  no  less.  If  work  were 
stopped  for  a  brief  period  for  reasons  beyond  the 
power  of  the  worker  to  control,  such  as  the  tem- 
porary crippling  of  a  machine,  the  stoppage  was 
likely  to  be  followed  by  a  spurt  and,  without  over- 
working his  powers,  the  worker  finished  the  day 
with  the  usual  production  to  his  credit.  There  is 
obviously  no  general  form  of  daily  curve  that  is 


CAPACITY  AND  OUTPUT  41 

afforded  by  such  an  output.  It  may  or  may  not  be 
accompanied  by  fatigue.  In  the  factory  men- 
tioned, and  this  seems  to  be  general  with  repetitive 
work,  piece-rates  were  paid,  and  the  worker  by 
doing  more  could  earn  more  wages,  and  yet  he  lim- 
ited his  work. 

The  cause  of  this  self-limiting  of  production  is 
probably  quite  varied.  It  is  often  to  be  traced  to 
plain  laziness.  One  often  finds  too  a  loyal  dis- 
inclination among  capable  workers  to  surpass  their 
fellows,  and  often  a  more  or  less  unconscious  recog- 
nition that  a  certain  amount  is  enough  for  a  day's 
work.  Sometimes  the  fault  lies  with  the  foreman, 
who  encourages  the  performance  of  a  certain 
amount  as  the  traditional  and  proper  output  of 
his  department,  or  as  that  which  conforms  best 
with  the  routine  of  the  factory.  But  over  and 
above  all  other  causes  the  self-limitation  of  pro- 
duction is  to  be  laid  most  commonly  to  a  custom 
that  has  long  prevailed  and  still  prevails  in  indus- 
trial management,  that  of  lowering  an  established 
piece-rate  when  in  the  opinion  of  the  management 
the  worker  is  earning  too  large  wages.  Sometimes 
this  is  done  directly,  sometimes  it  is  done  indirectly 
by  slightly  altering  the  operation  and  calling  it 
new,  although  it  may  accomplish  the  same  end. 
This  cutting  of  piece-rates  has  been  so  prevalent 
in  the  past — it  is  the  boast  of  one  employer  that  he 
had  cut  the  rate  on  a  particular  operation  five  times 


42  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

in  succession — that  the  experienced  worker  has 
learned  to  expect  it  when,  by  his  own  exertions, 
his  wages  run  high,  and  thus  his  original  confidence 
in  his  employer  has  been  undermined  and  his  orig- 
inal ambition  to  work  hard,  however  honest,  has 
been  thwarted.  The  choosing  of  a  proper  piece- 
rate  for  an  operation,  one  that  will  justly  compen- 
sate the  worker  for  his  services  and  allow  a  fair 
profit  to  the  employer,  is  admittedly  a  difficult 
mattar;  but  with  an  experienced  rate-setter  or  by 
the  aid  of  tims  studies  mistakes  that  involve  serious 
financial  loss  should  rarely  occur.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  loss  of  the  worker's  confidence  in  the 
honesty  of  his  employer  is  of  profoundly  serious 
moment,  inimica  to  his  best  efforts  and  sure  to 
involve  the  employer  in  a  decrease  of  pecuniary 
profit.  Nothing  can  be  more  detrimental  to  the 
industrial  success  of  both  than  a  feeling  of  mutual 
distrust.  Their  re'ations  ought  to  be  those  not  of 
opponents  in  a  game,  each  trying  to  outdo  the 
other,  but  rather  of  companions  in  an  enterprise 
to  be  achieved  through  the  best  efforts  of  both. 
The  employer  should  pay  a  wage  that  is  directly 
proport  onal  to  the  effort  that  the  worker  ex- 
pends, and  this  once  promised  should  be  continued. 
If  th's  is  done  the  worker  is  under  equal  obliga- 
tion not  to  limit  his  production,  but  to  work  up  to 
the  capacity  that  is  in  him.  This  is  especially  a 
duty  where  he  is  granted  a  short  working  day. 


\  III 

THE  MAINTENANCE  OF  WORKING  POWER. 
OVERTIME 

I  have  spoken  so  far  only  of  the  labor  of  the 
single  work-day  and  the  fatigue  that  results  from 
it.  That  there  exists  also  a  weekly  course  of 
fatigue  is  generally  assumed.  There  have  been 
few  exact  studies  of  this  subject,  but  there  is  a 
certain  amount  of  reliable  evidence  that  weekly 
fatigue  regularly  exists.  Thus  Martin,  Withington 
and  Putnam  (23)  have  found  in  students  a  pro- 
gressive diminution  in  the  sensibility  of  the  skin 
from  Monday  to  Saturday,  and  they  ascribe  this 
to  the  progressive  fatigue  of  the  week.  The  indus- 
trial output  curve  for  the  week,  however,  rarely 
shows  the  effect  of  a  weekly  fatigue.  It  is  per- 
sistently low  on  Monday,  higher  on  Tuesday,  and, 
while  usually  at  a  fairly  high  level  with  fluctua- 
tions during  the  week,  does  not  necessarily  fall  on 
Saturday.  The  low  output  on  Monday,  the  so- 
called  "  Monday  effect,"  is  well  recognized  and  is 
usually  ascribed  to  Sunday  dissipation,  especially 
drinking.  A  more  reasonable  explanation  is  that 
suggested  by  Kent  (24)  that  the  low  output  is  due 

43 


44  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

to  a  lack  of  neuromuscular  coordination  following 
a  day  of  rest ;  as  the  result  of  the  abstention  from 
work  at  the  week-end  operations  are  to  some  extent 
forgotten;  by  the  training  imposed  by  the  work 
of  Monday,  however,  they  are  quickly  learned 
again  and  the  physiological  mechanism  comes  back 
to  its  usual  state  of  efficiency.  The  rise  in  output 
from  Monday  to  Tuesday  is  thus  a  "  practice 
effect."  It  may  seem  strange  that  the  output 
curve  does  not  fall  toward  the  end  of  the  week; 
but  the  absence  of  a  fall  cannot  be  interpreted  as 
necessarily  an  indication  that  no  fatigue  is  present. 
It  may  merely  show  that  with  the  conditions  under 
which  the  work  studied  has  been  performed  there 
is  not  sufficient  cumulative  fatigue  to  make  itself 
evident  in  this  particular  form  of  physiological 
activity.  There  is  always  too  the  unavoidable 
suspicion  that  the  operatives  are  not  working  up 
to  their  capacities.  There  is,  moreover,  to  be 
considered  the  fact  that  the  human  machine  is 
peculiar  in  that  it  is  always  played  upon  and  its 
efficiency  is  partly  determined  by  mental  influ- 
ences, and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  approach 
of  the  week  end  with  its  expected  release  from 
labor  may  buoy  up  the  workers  and  mask  any  tis- 
sue fatigue  that  might  otherwise  manifest  itself. 
That  psychical  influences  do  mask  fatigue  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  case  of  the  six-day  bicycle  riders 


MAINTENANCE  OF  WORKING  POWER    45 

in  New  York,  observed  by  Ayres  (25),  who  rode 
at  an  average  of  18.8  miles  an  hour  when  there 
was  no  music,  but  speeded  up  to  21  miles  when 
the  band  played. 

In  order  to  preserve  the  working  power  daily 
fatigue  should  not  be  so  great  that  it  cannot  be 
substantially  removed  by  the  night's  rest;  weekly 
fatigue  ought  likewise  to  be  dispelled  by  the  rest 
of  Sunday.  If  this  is  not  accomplished,  if  there  is 
a  residue  of  this  powerful  obstacle  to  efficiency 
accumulating  from  day  to  day  and  from  week  to 
wreek,  serious  results  will  surely  follow.  This  was 
precisely  the  situation  in  the  munitions  industry 
of  England.  Sixteen  months  after  the  war  began 
the  British  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Commit- 
tee (2)  wrote:  "  Taking  the  country  as  a  whole  the 
Committee  are  bound  to  record  their  impression 
that  the  munition  workers  in  general  have  been 
allowed  to  reach  a  state  of  reduced  efficiency  and 
lowered  health  which  might  have  been  avoided 
without  reduction  of  output  by  attention  to  the 
details  of  daily  and  weekly  rests."  And  again, 
twenty-two  months  later,  the  Committee  wrote: 
"  The  conditions  are  not  the  same  now  as  they 
were  in  the  early  days  of  the  war;  not  only  have 
large  numbers  of  the  youngest  and  strongest 
workers  been  withdrawn  for  military  service,  but 
those  who  remain  are  suffering  from  the  strain  in- 


46  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

separable  from  a  continuous  period  of  long  hours 
of  employment.  .  .  .  The  effects  of  the  strain  may- 
even  have  been  already  more  serious  than  appears 
on  the  surface,  for  while  it  is  possible  to  judge 
roughly  the  general  condition  of  those  working  in 
the  factory  to-day,  little  information  is  available 
concerning  the  large  number  of  workers  who,  for 
one  reason  or  another,  and  often  because  they  find 
the  work  too  arduous,  are  continually  giving  up 
their  job."  This  experience  of  England  ought 
to  serve  as  a  lesson  to  other  countries,  and  especi- 
ally to  America. 

A  particularly  insidious  way  of  nullifying  the 
advantages  of  a  short  working-day  that  is  not  un- 
common is  the  imposition  of  overtime,  keeping  the 
employee  for  an  evening  of  work  after  the  day's 
work  is  done.  Here  a  peculiarity  of  the  human 
machine  is  of  interest.  Mosso  (26)  showed  long 
ago  that  fatigue  does  not  increase  in  arithmetical 
proportion  to  the  increase  in  work  done,  but  that 
added  work  imposed  upon  an  already  fatigued 
individual  is  disproportionately  more  fatiguing  and 
requires  a  longer  time  for  recuperation.  Kent  (8) 
found  that  the  keenness  of  the  sight  of  industrial 
workers  is  diminished  in  a  greater  degree  by  a  day 
with  overtime,  than  by  a  day  of  the  usual  length. 
When  overtime  is  imposed  the  further  call  upon 
the  depressed  tissues  can,  indeed,  be  answered  for  a 


MAINTENANCE  OF  WORKING  POWER    47 

while  by  further  action — the  human  machine  can 
spurt — but  the  more  healthful  occupation  of  the 
evening,  in  view  of  the  work  of  the  morrow,  would 
be  one  of  recreation  and  rest.  If  overtime  is  ever 
thought  necessary,  as  in  a  real  and  serious  emer- 
gency, it  should  be  only  occasional  and  should  be 
followed  by  an  added  compensating  resting  period. 

What  is  said  of  overtime  applies  with  equal 
force  to  Sunday  labor  following  six  days'  occupa- 
tion. Here,  again,  the  example  of  England  is 
instructive.  As  a  direct  result  of  the  study  of 
industrial  fatigue  since  the  war  began  the  British 
Committee  puts  it  tersely  in  saj'ing  "  It  is  almost 
a  commonplace  that  seven  days'  labor  only  pro- 
duces six  days'  output,"  and  adds  that  in  Great 
Britain  "  Sunday  labor  for  men  is  now  greatly 
restricted  in  amount  and  has  been  practically 
abolished  for  women  and  young  persons." 

A  further  matter  of  importance  may  here  be 
mentioned.  ^Vn  observant  visitor  to  the  factories 
cannot  fail  to  notice  that  he  rarely  sees  old  men  or 
women  among  the  employees.  This  is  so  evident 
that  the  presence  of  an  aged  worker  appears 
anomalous.  There  is  a  widespread  opinion  that 
forty-five  represents  the  retiring  age  for  most  in- 
dustrial workers.  In  an  investigation  of  1761  brass 
foundrymen  in  Chicago  in  1911,  Hayhurst  (27) 
found  that  there  were  but  17,  or  0.97  per  cent,  over 


48  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

fifty  years  of  age,  and  but  180,  or  10.2  per  cent, 
estimated  at  over  forty  years.  The  question  im- 
mediately arises:  What  is  responsible  for  the 
absence  of  workers  beyond  middle  life;  and  the 
answer  inevitably  comes  to  mind  that  the  rigor 
of  the  game  incapacitates  them  at  an  age.  when 
human  beings  are  expected  still  to  be  doing  ex- 
cellent work.  If  this  is  so,  the  accumulated 
fatigue  of  many  years  is  the  decisive  factor.  The 
remedy  would  appear  to  be  a  diminution  in  the 
hours  of  labor  and  the  installation  of  other  con- 
ditions not  so  severe  for  the  human  machine  and 
conducive  to  its  longer  usefulness.  In  a  field  in 
which  accurate  data  are  largely  wanting  and  an 
intensive  study  is  much  needed,  it  is  impossible 
to  draw  decisive  conclusions,  but  the  subject  offers 
foo"d  for  enticing  speculation.  It  may  yet  prove 
to  be  a  vital  one  in  the  war  industries,  for  the  man- 
ufacture of  war  supplies  may  possibly  yet  devolve 
largely  upon  men  and  women  beyond  the  age  of 
forty-five. 


IX 

THE  LABOR  TURNOVER 

There  is  still  another  constant  feature  of  occu- 
pational work  which  is  a  bar  to  the  highest  degree 
of  efficiency,  namely,  the  change  in  the  personnel 
of  the  workers.  This  is  called  the  "  labor  turn- 
over." Its  extent  is  remarkable,  practically  no 
factory  is  free  from  it,  and  it  surpasses  in  amount 
all  estimates  of  those  who  have  not  examined 
actual  statistical  data  concerning  it.  It  is  con- 
sidered such  a  serious  matter  that  it  has  recently 
been  receiving  considerable  attention  from  em- 
ployers and  industrial  administrators.  In  a  recent 
study  of  twelve  factories  in  the  metal  industry, 
Alexander  (28)  found  that  72.8  per  cent  of  all  em- 
ployees engaged  during  1912  were  entirely  new  to 
the  factories  in  which  they  worked  and  that  in 
order  to  increase  the  working  force  by  6G97  during 
the  year  42,571  persons  were  engaged.  The  change 
is  less  among  the  more  skilled  than  the  less  skilled 
workers.  But,  whether  skilled  or  unskilled,  when 
it  is  considered  that  such  figures  represent  ma- 
chines, human  machines,  installed  and  replaced, 

49 


50  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

the  wastefulness  of  the  process  appears  evident. 
No  figures  are  available  to  show  how  the  war  has 
affected  labor  turnover,  but  it  seems  fair  to  as- 
sume that  it  has  increased  as  the  result  of  "war 
conditions. 

The  mere  pecuniary  cost  of  a  great  change  in 
the  laboring  force  is  a  large  item,  being  estimated 
by  Alexander  as  $53.92  for  each  new  employee. 
This  total  includes  the  cost  of  such  features  in- 
volved in  the  employment  of  new  workers  as  the 
clerical  work  of  hiring,  instruction  of  new  em- 
ployees, increased  wear  and  tear  of  machinery  and 
tools,  reduced  production,  increased  amount  of 
spoiled  work,  and  more  accidents.  Almost  no 
exact  data  exist  relative  to  these  factors,  but  the 
Public  Health  Service  has  been  able  to  discover 
in  several  departments  of  a  large  munition  fac- 
tory a  significant  parallelism  between  the  number 
of  accidents  and  the  inexperience  of  the  working 
force.  One  of  the  curves  is  reproduced  in  Fig. 
8,  page  75.  It  must  be  believed  that  the  low 
output  of  a  new  worker  contributes  the  most  con- 
siderable item  to  the  cost  of  the  labor  turnover, 
and  during  the  present  emergency  this  is  a  very 
•serious  matter.  It  is,  therefore,  desirable  to  seek 
out  the  causes  of  the  labor  turnover  and  to  apply 
the  remedies,  if  such  there  be. 

The  Public  Health  Service  (1)  has  obtained  the 
following    statistics    regarding    the   reasons    for 


THE  LABOR  TURNOVER  51 

employees  leaving  one  of  the  munition  factories 
during  a  period  of  six  months: 

A — Reason  known  to  firm 992 

Dismissed  (disciplinary ) 590 

Unsatisfactory 229 

Disobedience  to  orders 86 

Moral  delinquency 66 

Loafing,  Btaying  out 65 

Dangerous 58 

Refusal  to  work 27 

Insolence  to  foreman 26 

Sleeping  at  work 18 

Disobedience  to  factory  rules,  e.g., 
smoking 15 

Private  circumstances  outside  factory  222 

Removal  from  city 109 

Military  call 78 

Family  difficulties 22 

Illness 10 

Jail 2 

School 1 

Resigned 112 

General — "  gave  notice  " 87 

No  place  to  stay 25 

Paid  off  (discharged  honorably) ....  68 
B — Reason  unknown  to  firm.     Emploj'ees 
absent  more  than  two  weeks  with- 
out notice 9,442 

Here  it  appears  that  more  than  90  per  cent  of 
the  retiring  force  left  their  employment  for  reasons 
unknown  to  the  company.  This  experience  is 
probably  not  exceptional.  The  analysis  does  not 
go  farther,  but  many  probable  reasons  at  once  come 
to  mind.     There  will  always  be  a  certain  number 


52  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

of  long  illnesses,  deaths,  and  specific  personal  rea- 
sons not  connected  with  the  factory  or  its  manage- 
ment, and  there  will  always  be  a  floating  labor 
element,  drifting  hither  and  thither,  and  never 
content  to  remain  long  in  one  place.  But  it  is 
probable  that  the  majority  of  industrial  workers, 
like  other  human  beings,  prefer  to  find  their  niche 
in  the  world  and  remain  in  it.  If,  therefore,  they 
do  not  remain  long  in  the  place  which  they  have 
entered  it  is  because  there  is  a  lack  of  adaptation 
between  them  as  human  beings  and  their  environ- 
ment. This  may  relate  to  wages,  length  of  working 
day,  nature  of  the  work  and  their  fitness  for  it, 
danger  of  accidents,  physical  conditions  of  the 
factory  affecting  comfort  and  welfare,  their  fore- 
man or  their  fellow  workmen,  or  other  features 
with  reference  to  which  they  do  not,  or  think  that 
they  do  not,  fit.  Specific  remedies  are,  therefore, 
indicated  in  specific  cases,  and  a  careful  search  for 
the  causes  and  the  application  of  the  proper  reme- 
dies should  constantly  be  made  by  the  employing 
company.  But,  in  general,  I  believe  that  whatever 
promotes  individual  efficiency,  whatever  enables 
the  individual  machine  to  work  in  accordance  with 
physiological  laws,  whatever  leads  to  more  com- 
plete adaptation  of  the  worker  to  his  task,  will 
lessen  his  desire  to  leave  it  and  will  lighten  the 
burden  of  the  labor  turnover. 


X 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  EFFICIENCY  OF  WOMEN  COM- 
PARED WITH  MEN 

The  war  has  increased  enormously  the  total 
number  of  industrial  workers,  both  men  and 
women.  Factories  that  formerly  employed  hun- 
dreds now  make  use  of  thousands,  and  new 
factories  springing  up  here  and  there  make  new  cen- 
ters of  occupation.  A  fact  that  is  of  special  inter- 
est is  the  relatively  greater  increase  in  the  number 
of  women  than  of  men  workers.  It  is  stated  (29) 
of  Great  Britain  that  women  have  been  substituted 
for  men  in  practically  all  trades  and  that  according 
to  official  figures  in  July,  1917,  1,392,000  women 
were  taking  men's  places.  Women,  as  never  be- 
fore, are  becoming  a  prominent  feature  of  indus- 
trial life,  both  in  this  country  and  the  countries  of 
the  other  Entente  Allies.  An  inquiry  is,  there- 
fore, pertinent  into  the  efficiency  of  the  woman  as 
compared  with  the  man  worker. 

Here  I  wish  to  utter  a  word  of  preface.  Think- 
ing persons  have  long  since  passed  the  stage  where 
the  question  of  man's  superiority  in  general  and 
woman's  inferiority  is  discussed — there  is  no  such 

53 


54  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

question.  It  is  equally  clear  that  there  exist  be- 
tween the  sexes  marked  biological  differences,  an- 
atomical, physiological,  psychological.  I  shall  not 
discuss  the  question,  which  has  a  real  existence,  in 
how  far  these  differences  are  genetic,  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  the  individual  and  transmissible  by 
inheritance,  and  in  how  far  they  are  the  result  of 
education,  training,  social  environment  and  op- 
portunity. But  it  must  be  granted  that  the  dif- 
ferences in  anatomical  features,  and  they  are 
many  and  profound,  are  inherited;  and  if  this  be 
so,  it  is,  I  think,  idle  to  claim  that  the  main  physi- 
ological and  psychological  differences,  also  many 
and  profound,  are  chiefly  the  result  of  differences 
in  training  and  social  environment.  Nevertheless, 
whatever  their  origin,  the  differences  do  exist  and 
they  must  be  reckoned  with  in  the  determination 
of  the  relative  fitness  of  the  two  sexes  for  indus- 
trial work  and  their  relative  industrial  efficiencies. 
The  lesser  muscular  strength  of  women  is  obvi- 
ous. Miss  Thompson  (30),  in  summarizing  the  re- 
sults of  her  own  and  others'  tests  on  various  phases 
of  motor  ability,  the  keenness  of  the  senses  and 
certain  intellectual  qualities,  finds  that  men  have 
a  shorter  reaction  time  than  women,  with  a  smaller 
mean  variation  in  the  time,  a  greater  rapidity  of 
movement,  a  slower  oncoming  of  fatigue,  and  a 
greater  accuracy  of  movement;  while  women  excel 


WOMEN  COMPARED  WITH  MEN    55 

men  in  the  rapidity  of  forming  new  motor  coordi- 
nations. Men  too  have  a  keener  vision  in  the  per- 
ception of  light  and  finer  discrimination  in  lifted 
weights,  tastos,  and  the  determination  of  the  areas 
of  visible  objects;  while  women  are  keener  in 
detecting  stimuli  in  skin  sensibility,  such  as  touch 
and  pain  effected  through  pressure,  in  taste,  smell, 
and  color,  and  have  finer  chscrimination  in  the 
pitch  of  sounds  and  in  color.  On  the  whole  men 
excel  in  motor  ability,  and  women  in  delicacy  of 
the  senses.  As  to  the  intellectual  faculties  men 
are  superior  in  ingenuity,  and  women  in  memory 
and  the  rapidity  of  forming  mental  associations. 
The  total  amount  of  general  information  possessed 
by  the  two — I  am  still  following  Miss  Thompson's 
summary — is  essentially  the  same  where  they  have 
taken  the  same  course  of  education,  although  men 
are  somewhat  better  informed  in  scientific  and 
women  in  literary  subjects.  My  own  experience 
with  men  and  women  in  the  laboratory  has  shown 
me — and  I  think  this  is  almost  a  universal  experi- 
ence— that  women  have  less  initiative  and  re- 
sourcefulness in  planning  a  research  or  an  experi- 
mental method,  but  that  once  it  has  been  planned 
they  will  perform  the  required  experiments  with  a 
high  degree  of  accuracy  and  commendable  per- 
sistence. If,  however,  in  the  course  of  the  work 
the  apparatus  that  they  are  using  goes  wrong 


56  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

mechanically,  they  are  not  so  successful  as  are  most 
men  in  discovering  the  cause  of  the  trouble  and 
eliminating  it. 

These  differences  between  men  and  women  make 
it  clear  that  the  first  pertinent  question  here  is 
not  that  of  the  greater  or  less  general  industrial 
efficiency  of  the  woman  as  compared  with  the  man 
worker,  but  rather  the  question  of  what  kinds  of 
industrial  operations  are  best  adapted  to  each. 
Women  are  obviously  debarred  from  the  mus- 
cular ly  more  severe  tasks.  In  those  requiring  con- 
stant change  and  a  constant  call  upon  a  consider- 
able degree  of  mechanical  ingenuity  women  may 
not  be  expected  to  be  so  generally  successful  as 
men.  But  with  the  lighter  operations,  where  the 
same  act  is  constantly  repeated,  which  make  up 
now  a  great  proportion  of  industrial  tasks,  women 
find  a  suitable  field  for  their  activities.  An  ob- 
server finds  a  considerable  number  of  women  in 
our  munition  factories  doing  lathe  work  and  doing 
it  with  apparently  the  same  degree  of  efficiency  as 
men.  The  making  of  both  guns  and  ammuni- 
tion requires  constant  inspection  of  the  manufac- 
tured parts  to  insure  their  accuracy  and  the  elimi- 
nation of  imperfect  pieces,  and  here  women  have 
shown  themselves  particularly  capable.  Such  in- 
spection, which  involves  not  only  very  careful  ob- 
servation but  often  very  accurate  measurement 


WOMEN  COMPARED  WITH  MEN    57 


and  in  which  rapidity  of  decision  and  action  is  re- 
quired, is  now  indeed  performed  chiefly  by  women. 
Wherever  men  and  women  are  working  at  the  same 
task  and  one  apparently  suited  to  both  I  do  not 
find  that  accurate  data  have  yet  been  secured  to 
warrant  an  inference  as  to  their  relative  degrees 
of  efficiency.  The  general  opinion,  as  I  have  been 
able  to  gather  it  from  a  few  of  the  managers  of 
our  munition  factories,  seems  to  be  that  in  such 
tasks  woman's  efficiency  equals  man's. 

The  question  of  relative  health  must  be  taken 
into  consideration.  Statistics  from  various  coun- 
tries show  that  working  women  are  more  subject 
to  illness  than  are  working  men,  their  morbidity 
is  greater.  The  statistics  of  the  Local  Sickness 
Fund  of  Leipsic  (31)  for  one  hundred  wage-earning 
persons  observed  are  as  follows: 


Age  group. 

Cases  of  sickness  per  100 

PERSONS. 

Men. 

Women. 

Under  15  years 

3S.0 
37.6 
36.3 
3S.0 
44.3 
51.7 
60.2 
75.7 

29.0 

15-20 

36.4 

20-25 

42.1 

25-35 

50.2 

35-45 

55.3 

45-55 

54.3 

55-65 

54.9 

65-75 

66.6 

58  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

This  excess  of  illness  occurs  especially  between 
the  ages  of  twenty  and  fifty-five,  although  it  seems 
not  to  be  due  to  child-bearing  alone.  Working- 
females  younger  and  older  than  these  age  limits 
show  in  general  less  morbidity  than  do  working 
males.  With  minor  illnesses  women  continue  at 
their  work  more  steadily  than  do  men.  Not- 
withstanding this  fact,  the  absences  of  women 
from  their  work  because  of  illness  are  much  more 
frequent  than  are  the  absences  of  men.  Thus  the 
Mutual  Aid  Society  of  Silk  Workers  at  Lyons  (32) 
reports  that  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  forty 
the  days  lost  by  its  women  members,  because  of 
sickness,  were  more  than  twice  those  lost  by  men. 
Statistics  obtained  by  the  U.  S.  Public  Health 
Service  (33)  show  that  among  16,000  government 
employees  in  the  Federal  departments  at  Wash- 
ington in  1914,  men  lost  on  account  of  sickness  an 
average  of  4.82  days  and  women  an  average  of  8.90 
days,  also  more  than  twice  as  many.  There  is  a 
general  tradition  that  the  menstrual  function 
causes  a  periodic  diminution  of  general  efficiency 
in  woman's  body,  but  this  is  hardly  supported  by 
the  more  exact  inquiries.  One  of  the  latest  and 
apparently  most  reliable  of  these,  a  research  per- 
formed by  Mrs.  Hollingworth  (34)  at  Columbia 
University,  in  which  various  familiar  tests  of  the 
psychological  laboratory  were  used,  leads  to  the 


WOMEN  COMPARED  WITH  MEN    59 

conclusions  that:  "  Careful  and  exact  measure- 
ment does  not  reveal  a  periodic  mental  or  motor 
inefficiency  in  normal  women.  .  .  .  The  varia- 
bility of  performance  is  not  affected  by  physiolog- 
ical periodicity.  No  regularly  recurring  period  of 
maximum  efficiency  within  each  month  is  discern- 
ible." Notwithstanding  this  conclusion,  appar- 
ently justified  from  the  results  that  were  ob- 
tained by  the  methods  used,  one  of  my  graduate 
students,  Miss  Epstean,  in  an  investigation  of 
the  total  strength  of  ten  healthy  young  women, 
conducted  by  means  of  almost  daily  tests  with  the 
spring  balance  method  extending  over  five  months, 
reveals  an  average  loss  of  muscular  strength  of 
about  5  per  cent  during  the  menstrual  days. 

Women  are  more  susceptible  than  are  men  to 
industrial  poisons.  There  is  general  agreement 
that  they  are  more  susceptible  to  the  evil  physical 
conditions  of  industrial  life,  such  as  long  working 
hours,  hasty  meals,  constant  standing,  lack  of 
resting  intervals,  and  so  on. 

All  the  considerations  here  cited  combine  to 
demonstrate  that  the  female  body  considered  as  a 
machine  is  different  in  certain  respects  from  the 
male  body  and  that  the  conditions  under  which  the 
greatest  degrees  of  efficiency  can  be  secured  for  the 
two,  respectively,  are  probably  different  in  cer- 
tain features.     Because  of  this  and  because  of  the 


60  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

fact  that  women  have  become  an  indispensable  fac- 
tor in  the  industrial  world  there  is  needed  a  care- 
fully controlled  experimental  study  of  the  problem 
of  women's  labor  from  the  physiological  stand- 
point. 


XI 

NIGHT  WORK  IN  COMPARISON  WITH  DAY  WORK 

Long  ago  night  work  had  become  an  established 
industrial  custom,  especially  for  men.  Night 
work  is  excusable  where  the  nature  of  the  processes 
is  such  that  continuous  operation  is  required,  where 
interrupting  the  series  of  events  essential  to  the 
manufacture  would  inevitably  ruin  the  material 
already  well  along  in  the  process  of  production. 
Even  where  a  continuous  process  is  not  essential 
night  work  is  understandable,  for  it  can  be  argued 
on  apparently  reasonable  grounds  that  it  is  uneco- 
nomical to  allow  productive  equipment  to  remain 
idle  for  one-half  or  two-thirds  of  every  twenty-four 
hours.  But  at  the  outset  of  every  discussion  of 
the  topic  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  human  machine  night  work  is 
always  abnormal.  Man  is  a  diurnal,  not  a  noc- 
turnal, animal,  and  any  attempts  to  change  his 
innate  habits  in  this  respect  are  bound  to  inter- 
fere with  his  physiological  processes.  Man's  body 
needs  the  stimulus  of  sunlight  and  is  adapted  to 
the  atmospheric  conditions  of  the  day.     Some  of 

61 


62 


THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 


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6 


his  physiological  proc- 
esses exhibit  a  regular 
curve  of  variation 
through  the  twenty- 
four  hours,  one  of  the 
best  known  being  that 
of  bodily  temperature, 
with  its  gradual  rise 
during  the  day  to  a 
maximum  late  in  the 
afternoon,  and  a  grad- 
ual fall  during  the 
night  to  a  minimum 
in  the  early  morn- 
ing (Fig.  5).  Under 
very  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances of  living 
this  cycle  may  be  re- 
versed by  turning  the 
day  into  night,  and 
vice  versa.  Thus 
Simpson  and  Gal- 
braith  (35)  obtained 
such  a  reversal  in  mon- 
keys by  keeping  them 
awake  and  active  dur- 
ing the  night  and  al- 
lowing  them  to  sleep 


NIGHT  WORK  AND   DAY   WORK     63 

in  sound-proof  and  light-proof  cages  during   the 
day,   and  Linhard    (36)  in  the  long  night  of  an 
Arctic  winter,  dark  and   silent,   found   that   the 
rhythm  of  bodily  temperature  could  be  reversed 
at  will  by  changing  the  alternation  of  rest  and 
activity.     But   Benedict's    (37)  observations  are 
more  pertinent  to  our  present  subject.     By  means 
of  an  apparatus  that  recorded  the  bodily  tempera- 
ture    continually    throughout    the     twenty-four 
hours  he  observed  two  subjects,  one  a  customary 
day-worker  who  had  changed  to  night-work  nine 
and    eleven    days,  respectively,   before   the    two 
series  of  observations  were  made;    and  the  other 
a  night-watchman  who  had  had  five  years  of  un- 
interrupted  night   service.      In   both   cases   the 
curves  of  temperature  showed  deviations  from  the 
curves  of  an  individual  living  the  more  normal 
life,  but — and  here  is  the  important   point — in 
neither  case  was  there  an  inversion  of  the  usual 
day  and  night  curve,  in  both  there  was  the  usual 
fall  through  the  evening  to  a  minimum  in  the  early 
morning.     It  is  widely  believed  that  bodily  vigor 
is  low  in  the  early  morning  and  that  the  greatest 
number  of  deaths  occur  then;  there  is  some  statis- 
tical evidence  for  this. 

The  war  emergency  has  increased  enormously 
the  amount  of  night  work  of  both  men  and  women. 
This  is  especially  so  in  England.     It,  therefore, 


64  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

becomes  desirable  to  inquire  into  the  efficiency  of 
night  in  comparison  with  day  work. 

A  common  custom  in  factories  possessing  a  ten- 
hour  working  day  with  no  Sunday  work  is  to  make 
the  duration  of  the  night  work  twelve  hours  for 
the  five  working  nights  of  the  week,  thus  equalizing 
the  weekly  lengths  of  the  two  shifts.  The  Public 
Health  Service  (1)  has  investigated  the  output  of 
men  engaged  in  certain  operations  in  one  of  our 
munition  factories  under  such  conditions  and  has 
obtained  certain  curves  of  production,  one  of 
which  is  here  reproduced  (Fig.  6).  The  operation 
consisted  of  drilling  and  reaming  a  hole  in  the 
bottom  closing  screw  of  a  fuse,  and  the  task  re- 
quired the  use  of  several  tools  and  accurate  muscu- 
lar coordination.  Work  began  at  6:20  f.m.  and 
continued  uninterruptedly  until  midnight.  Lunch- 
eon was  then  eaten,  but  was  allowed  to  occupy 
only  twenty  minutes.  The  second  spell  continued 
from  12 :20  until  6 :40  A.M.  The  output  of  the  first 
spell  showed  a  rise  followed  by  a  fall — practice 
effect  and  fatigue.  The  brief  luncheon  recess  was 
insufficient  for  recuperation  in  the  work  illus- 
trated, although  in  some  other  operations  ob- 
served there  was  a  slight  recovery  of  working 
power.  In  the  second  spell  output  again  rose  and 
then  fell  during  five  hours,  up  to  which  point  the 
night's  curve  had  not  differed  essentially  from  that 


NTOHT  WORK  AND   DAY  WORK     65 


620    7 


Fkj.  6. — Curve  of  output  in  night  work.  The  height  of  each 
point  in  the  curve  above  the  base  line  represents  the  output 
of  the  corresponding  hour.  Men  workers;  lathe  operation; 
shift  of  twelve  hours  and  twenty  minutes.  (By  courtesy 
of  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service.) 


66  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

of  the  day  for  work  of  a  similar  character.  But 
then  appeared  a  striking  feature,  for  from  about 
5  o'clock  on,  production  dropped  suddenly  and 
during  the  final  forty  minutes  almost  nothing,  in 
some  other  operations  literally  nothing,  was  pro- 
duced.    The  actual  figures  are  here  reproduced. 

Output  of  Night  Wokk 


Hour. 

Output. 

Drilling  and  reaming; 

total  of  56  observations. 

6.20-7  p.m. 

10,349 

7-8 

10,730 

8-9 

11,220 

9-10 

11,011 

10-11 

10,925 

11-12 

10,591 

12.20-1  a.m. 

10,368 

1-2 

10,728 

2-3 

10,677 

3-4 

10,743 

4-5 

10,311 

6-6 

7,932 

6-6.40 

152 

The  investigators  noted  the  average  time  re- 
quired for  performing  certain  operations  during 
the  successive  four  periods  of  three  hours  each 
throughout  the  night  and  found  that  this  grad- 
ually lengthened  as  the  night  passed  on,  the  suc- 
cessive figures  in  seconds  being  12,  13.3,  16.5  and 
17.4.-   Furthermore,  a  count  of  the  number  of 


NIGHT  WORK  AND   DAY  WORK     C7 

men  found  sleeping  at  every  quarter  of  an  hour 
dining  the  last  three  hours  of  the  shift  gave  the 
following  figures,  the  total  number  of  men  work- 
ing in  the  department  at  the  time  being  74. 


Hour  a.m. 

Number  of  men 
sleeping. 

UOL'R   A.M. 

Number  of  men 
sleeping. 

3.30 

5 

5.15 

2 

3.45 

3 

5.30 

2 

4.00 

4 

5.45 

4 

4.15 

0 

6.00 

2 

4.30 

4 

6.15 

14 

4.45 

1 

6.30 

2 

5.00 

5 

These  results  suggest  the  remedy  for  the  great 
deterioration  in  production  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  night  shift:  End  the  work  at  5  a.m  or  even 
before  that  and  send  the  workers  home  and  to  bed. 
If  this  were  done  and  the  night  work  were  short- 
ened to  ten  hours  it  is  quite  probable  that  the 
night's  production  would  be  actually  increased. 

That,  in  general,  night  labor  is  not  so  efficient 
as  day  labor  is  clearly  shown  by  certain  observa- 
tions made  by  the  British  Committee  on  the  out- 
puts of  the  two  shifts.  Thus  Greenwood  (38) 
found  that  where  the  actual  working  time  was 
nearly  the  same  in  the  day  and  the  night  shifts  of 
a  cartridge  factory  the  women  night  workers  pro- 


68  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

duced  in  the  case  department  in  two  periods  that 
were  observed  17  and  12  per  cent  less,  respec- 
tively, than  the  women  day  workers,  and  in  the 
bullet  department  in  one  period  10  per  cent  less. 
Moreover,  the  regularity  of  employment  was  de- 
cidedly inferior  with  the  night  workers,  they  hav- 
ing lost  8.70  per  cent  of  time,  as  compared  with 
only  5.63  per  cent  lost  by  the  day  workers.  In 
certain  operations  in  the  making  of  3-inch  shrap- 
nel shells  by  men  Vernon  (38)  found  the  night 
workers  to  produce  on  the  average  about  6  per 
cent  less  than  the  day  workers.  There  is  a  gen- 
eral consensus  of  opinion  that  the  product  of  night 
work  is  inferior  in  quality  to  that  of  day  work  and 
that  it  contains  a  larger  proportion  of  spoiled 
goods. 

Statistics  show  that  more  accidents  occur  during 
the  night  hours  than  during  the  day  hours.  This 
is  well  demonstrated  by  the  observations  made  by 
Chaney  (39)  under  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Labor 
in  a  large  steel  plant  during  a  period  of  six  years, 
the  excess  of  the  night  rate  over  the  day  rate 
amounting  to  11.6  per  cent  (Fig.  7). 

There  is  a  general  consensus  of  opinion  that 
night  work  is  more  deleterious  to  health  than  is 
day  work,  and  this  opinion  is  supported  by  incon- 
testable evidence;  but  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  it  is  hardly  possible,  nor  indeed  for  our 


NIGHT   WORK   AND   DAY  WORK     69 


1905 
1906 
1907 


UOB         M 


1909 


1910 


Blast 
Furnaces 


Bessemer 


Open 

Hearth 


Polling 

Mills 


Mechanical 
Yards 


2ty 


103 


,     '<i$% 


(  Durlna  1908  many 

.  danrjerous  operations 

1  74  |  entirely  suspended 
at  night.) 


™ 


127 


153 


NIGHT  ET 


DAYQ 


Fig.  7. — Day  and  night  accident  rates  per  lOOO  workers  in  a 
lnrRp  steel  plant,  by  years  and  departments.  (By  courtesy 
of  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Labor.) 


70  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

present  purpose,  is  it  necessary,  to  differentiate 
between  deleterious  effects  per  se,  resulting  from 
such  conditions  as  the  attempted  imposition  of  an 
unphysiological  rhythm  and  the  lack  of  beneficial 
sunshine,  and  deleterious  effects  resulting  from  the 
fact  that  under  our  social  conditions  the  day's 
recuperation  of  the  night  worker  is  rarely  equal  to 
the  night's  recuperation  of  the  day  worker.  Night 
work  entails  a  diminution  of  sleep.  The  day's 
light,  the  day's  sounds,  the  irresistible  lure  of  an 
active  world,  and,  with  a  married  woman,  domestic 
duties,  in  a  home  where  children  must  be  cared 
for,  meals  must  be  prepared,  and  clothing  must  be 
washed — all  these  prevent  sleep.  The  New  York 
State  Factory  Investigating  Commission  (40) 
found  in  one  large  plant  that  the  married  women 
who  worked  at  night  obtained  about  four  and  one- 
half  hours  of  sleep  in  the  day  time.  Here  in  itself 
is  a  powerful  bar  to  efficiency.  The  bad  effects  of 
night  work  on  health  have  been  especially  ob- 
served in  women  workers,  with  their  greater  sus- 
ceptibility to  illness  (41).  What  is  a  physical  tax 
on  man  is  a  physical  surtax  on  woman,  and  it 
cannot  be  allowed  that  this  form  of  burden  is 
justifiable  even  in  the  emergency  of  war. 

I  have  shown  that  night  work  is  characterized 
by  certain  distinctive  features:  It  imposes  on  a 
physiological  organism  attuned  to  one  sequence  of 


NIOIIT   WORK   AND   DAY   WORK    71 

events  a  different  and  abnormal  sequence;   it  is 

characterized  by  greater  fatigue  Hum  is  day  work; 
it  is  interrupted  by  sleep;  its  curve  of  output  tail- 
off  at  an  excessive  rate  in  the  morning  hours;  its 
total  output  is  less  than  with  day  work;  its  acci- 
dent rate  and  its  proportion  of  lost  time  are  in 
excess  over  those  of  the  day;  it  has  a  deleterious 
effect  on  health.  All  these  features  are  inimical 
to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency. 

The  case  against  it  appears  to  be  black.  How 
can  its  evils  be  lessened?  The  British  Committee 
(38)  has  suggested  one  plan,  and  that  is  by  making 
it  not  continuous,  week  after  week,  but  alternating 
periods  of  night  work  with  periods  of  day  work. 
They  have,  indeed,  observed  this  plan  in  women's 
factories  with  hundreds  of  operatives  whose  work 
was  changed  from  night  to  day  and  vice  versa, 
in  some  cases  every  week,  in  other  cases  every 
month.  In  nearly  every  group  of  workers  follow- 
ing this  plan  that  were  observed,  both  men  and 
women,  there  was  practical  equality  of  the  night 
and  the  day  outputs,  and  the  total  output  of  the 
day  periods  did  not  seem  to  be  lessened  because  of 
the  existence  of  the  previous  night  periods.  With 
women,  however,  the  equality  of  output  appeared 
to  be  confined  to  the  more  monotonous  operations; 
with  those  less  monotonous  there  was  evidence 
that  the  night's  inferiority  was  still  maintained. 


72  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

The  Committee  expresses  no  opinion  as  to  the  best 
length  of  the  alternating  periods.  Frequent 
changes  have  the  disadvantage  of  giving  too  little 
time  for  adjustment  of  one's  habits,  especially  that 
of  sleeping.  If  night  work  must  be  performed, 
however,  the  discontinuous  system  appears  to  in- 
volve less  inefficiency  than  the  continuous  system. 
The  American  observers  have  not  given  special 
study  to  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  systems, 
but  their  observations  point  to  the  general  con- 
clusion that  a  long  night  shift,  such  as  twelve 
hours,  is  unprofitable.  The  final  two  hours  at 
least,  with  their  broken  time  and  little  output, 
might  well  be  cut  off  and  the  worker  be  sent  home 
to  gain  a  better  recuperative  preparation  for  the 
labor  of  the  following  night.  It  ought,  however, 
clearly  to  be  understood  that  these  devices  of  dis- 
continuity and  brevity  are  but  a  subterfuge;  they 
offer  only  a  mitigation  of  an  evil.  Night  work  is 
unnatural,  unphysiological,  abnormal,  and  it  must 
ever  remain  so.  It  should  not  be  allowed  for 
women,  and  resort  to  it  for  men  can  only  be  justi- 
fied by  exceptional  circumstances. 


XII 

INDUSTRIAL  ACCIDENTS 

In  any  comprehensive  discussion  of  industrial 
efficiency  accidents  to  the  workers  must  be  con- 
sidered. It  has  been  estimated  that  in  the  United 
States  30,000  wage-earners  are  killed  annually  and 
at  least  500,000  more  are  seriously  injured.  By 
far  the  greater  number  of  industrial  accidents  must 
be  laid  in  part  at  least  to  the  account  of  the  worker 
himself  rather  than  to  events  outside  his  body, 
although  tins  fact  does  not  necessarily  imply  cul- 
pability on  his  part.  Thus  of  2678  accidents  in 
Illinois  in  1910  Bogardus  (42)  found  that  82.2  per 
cent  represented  those  "  in  which  loss  of  control, 
varying  from  failure  to  make  fine  coordinations 
on  to  gross  and  bungling  coordinations  and  to 
absence  of  movements  which  might  have  pre- 
vented injury,  appears  to  have  been  a  factor." 
In  other  words,  most  accidents  have,  in  part,  a 
physiological  origin.  Of  the  various  conceivable 
physiological  causes  two,  inexperience  and  fatigue, 
are  especially  potent. 

The  Public  Health  Service  (1)  has  found  in  one 
73 


74  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

of  our  factories  a  close  parallelism  between  the 
number  of  new  employees  engaged  and  the  number 
of  accidents,  and  the  results  of  the  observations  are 
pictured  in  Fig.  8.  The  curves  need  no  discussion. 
The  old  and  tried  worker  may  become  careless  at 
times  and,  while  scorning  danger,  may  fall  into  it; 
but  it  is  the  inexperienced  man  who  is  the  more 
prone  to  injure  himself — a  strong  argument  against 
a  frequent  change  in  the  personnel  of  the  workers. 
Both  keenness  of  attention  and  precision  of 
movement  are  impaired  in  fatigue.  Bogardus 
found  by  a  simple  laboratory  experiment  that  un- 
interrupted work  is  accompanied  by  increasing 
muscular  inaccuracy,  a  result  that  is  indicative  of 
the  participation  of  fatigue  in  the  causation  of  in- 
dustrial accidents.  This  is  made  very  certain  by 
their  hourly  distribution  throughout  the  working 
day  (6).  Most  of  the  tabulations  that  have  been 
made  agree  in  showing  that  as  output  diminishes  in 
each  spell,  coincident  with  the  progress  of  fatigue, 
accidents  increase  in  number — the  curve  grad- 
ually rises  through  the  spell  (Fig.  9).  The  maxi- 
mum number,  however,  usually  occurs  not  at  the 
end  of  the  spell,  but  some  time  before  the  end, 
and  during  the  final  hour  or  more  there  is  a  diminu- 
tion, the  curve  thus  terminating  with  a  fall.  This 
fall  is  usually  ascribed  partly  to  a  diminution  in  the 
number  of  workers,  partly  to  their  more  leisurely 


INDUSTRIAL   ACCIDENTS  75 


Accidents 


Net  Inexperience 


NOV. 


DEC. 


JAN. 


FEB. 


MAR.        APR. 


MAY 


Fio.  8. — Parallelism  of  number  of  accidents  and  number  of  inex- 
perienced employees  in  a  large  munition  factory.  (By  cour- 
tesy of  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service.) 


LUNCH 


9        10       11        12        1 


Fia.  9. — Distribution  of  industrial  accidents  in  the  working  day. 
Total  of  many  industries.  (Ohio  Industrial  Commission, 
Department  of  Investigation,  Report  No.  4,  1914.) 


76  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

occupation,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  their  ex- 
pected release  from  labor  quickens  and  makes  more 
precise  the  action  of  their  neuromuscular  mechan- 
ism and  thus  diminishes  the  chances  of  a  casualty 
occurring.  Whatever  the  explanation  of  the  final 
and  usually  brief  fall  in  the  curve,  the  main  fact  of 
the  progressive  increase  in  accidents  with  pro- 
gressive fatigue  exists  and  is  impressive.  The 
worker  who  is  fresh  at  his  work,  keenly  attentive, 
and  capable  of  making  the  proper  motions  and  of 
keeping  out  of  harm's  way  may,  it  is  true,  inad- 
vertently thrust  his  hand  into  the  gears,  or  touch 
the  cutting  tool,  or  step  into  the  path  of  the  hot 
metal — accidents  begin  with  the  beginning  of  the 
day's  work — but  the  worker  who  is  tired  omits  the 
finer  neuromuscular  coordinations,  makes  the 
grosser  and  more  bungling  movements,  or  alto- 
gether neglects  the  things  which  physiologically  he 
ought  to  do — his  fatigued  condition  is  largely  re- 
sponsible for  his  mistakes. 

Accidents  are  increased  in  number  by  poor  illu- 
mination. The  British  Departmental  Committee 
on  Lighting  in  Factories  and  Workshops  (43)  has 
found  that  accidents  are  far  more  numerous  with 
artificial  than  with  natural  lighting,  rising  in  some 
cases  of  the  former  40  per  cent  above  those  of  the 
latter.  This  probably  accounts  chiefly  for  the 
greater  preponderance  of  industrial  accidents  in 


INDUSTRIAL  ACCIDENTS  77 

the  winter  as  compared  with  the  summer  months,  a 
fact  also  pointed  out  by  the  Committee. 

The  greater  number  of  accidents  occurring  dur- 
ing night  work  than  during  day  work  has  already 
been  mentioned  (p.  68).  It  is  not  clear  in  how  far 
this  difference  is  dependent  upon  the  physical 
condition  of  poorer  illumination  and  in  how  far  a 
depressed  physiological  condition  is  responsible. 

Accidents,  however  caused,  are  a  serious  bar  to 
the  efficiency  of  the  human  machine,  quite  apart 
from  their  direct  pecuniary  cost  to  the  employer. 
In  proportion  to  the  severity  and  in  accordance 
with  the  nature  of  their  injuries  injured  workmen 
lose  time  and  productive  power.  If  wholly  in- 
capacitated, whether  permanently  or  not,  their 
places  must  be  filled  by  others,  and  here  produc- 
tion is  delayed  by  the  necessary  training.  It  is 
obviously  to  the  interest  of  the  employer  to  reduce 
the  workers'  injuries  to  their  smallest  possible 
number,  and  the  employer  has  it  in  his  power  to 
prevent  a  large  proportion  of  them.  It  must, 
nevertheless,  be  recognized,  I  believe,  that,  how- 
ever much  employers  may  have  a  wholesome 
regret  for  the  occurrence  of  accidents  to  their 
workers  and  however  much  they  may  realize  the 
expense  caused  thereby,  many  of  the  employers 
fail  to  appreciate  both  the  great  wastefulness  and 
hindrance  to  production  involved  in  such  casual- 


78  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

ties  and  the  ease  with  which  they  may  be  dimin- 
ished in  number.  One  of  the  most  obvious  pre- 
ventive measures  is  the  installation  of  safety 
devices,  which  are  now  numerous,  varied,  effective, 
and  often  inexpensive.  No  really  progressive 
manager  will  neglect  them.  Whatever  will  reduce 
the  labor  turnover  will  reduce  accidents.  But 
the  avoidance  of  excessive  fatigue  is  of  prime  im- 
portance, and  this  can  be  done  by  means  of  the 
various  provisions  against  fatigue  that  are  here 
advocated,  such  as  not  overdriving,  allowing  rest 
pauses,  shortening  a  long  working  period,  and 
other  measures. 


XIII 

INDUSTRIAL  MEDICINE.    WELFARE  WORK 

It  goes  without  saying  that  an  efficient  body 
must,  in  the  long  run,  be  a  body  free  from  disease. 
In  so  far  as  the  causes  of  disease  lie  in  the  condi- 
tions of  industrial  work  their  existence  has  no  jus- 
tification, either  ethical  or  economic;  and  yet  an 
examination  of  any  of  the  excellent  existing 
treatises  on  industrial  diseases  (44)  will  make  one 
keenly  aware  of  their  great  prominence  in  the  life 
of  to-day.  Here  again  fatigue  must  be  recognized 
as  one  of  the  chief  factors.  Several  years  ago, 
while  on  a  railway  trip  to  one  of  our  state  capitals 
for  the  purpose  of  opposing  proposed  unwise  legis- 
lative action  against  scientific  medicine,  a  valued 
friend  of  mine,  one  of  the  leading  American  path- 
ologists, expressed  to  me  his  firm  conviction  that 
in  the  course  of  time  fatigue  would  be  recognized 
as  one  of  the  main  causes  of  disease;  and  Sir 
James  Paget  is  quoted  as  writing  "  You  will  find 
that  fatigue  has  a  larger  share  in  the  promotion 
or  transmission  of  disease  than  any  other  single 
causal  condition  you  can  name."     Here  may  be 

79 


80 


THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 


mentioned  an  instructive  research  by  Abbott  and 
Gildersleeve  (45),  who  found  that  when  rabbits 

were  inoculated  with 
pathogenic  bacteria 
and  were  then  fa- 
tigued by  running 
several  hours  each 
day  in  a  wheel  they 
died,  while  other 
rabbits,  inoculated, 
but  not  fatigued, 
survived.  With  the 
fatigued  rabbits  the 
opsonic  index,  which 
may  be  interpreted 
to  the  layman  as 
that  condition  of  the 
blood  which  signifies 
the  degree  of  sus- 
ceptibility of  the 
organism  to  b  a  c  - 
terial  infection,  was 
gradually  reduced 
as  the  fatigue  pro- 
gressed. Cessation 
of  the  fatiguing  process  for  even  a  day  resulted  in  a 
partial  recovery  of  depression  in  the  opsonic  index 
(Fig.  10).    The  bearing  of  such  an  experimental 


o 

-  X 

oS 
o  "" 

-16 

2/ 

Ai 

As 

% 

%0 

Ki 

/22 

/23 

»/& 

2A* 

2.0 

1.9 

1.8 

1.7 

1.6 

1.5 

1.4 

1.3 

1.2 

1.1 

1.0 

0.9 

0.8 

0.7 

0.6 

0.5 

0.4 

0.3 

WEIGHT 

i6oa 

1590 

1550 

140O 

1350 

1350 

1200 

1220 

HOURS 
OF  WORK 
PER  DAY 

3-3 

3-4 

4-4 

IESTE1 

4-4 

6 

7-4 

2 

Fig.  10. — Effect  of  fatigue  on  the 
opsonic  index  of  a  rabbit,  (Ab- 
bott and  Gildersleeve.) 


INDUSTRIAL  MEDICINE  81 

result  on  the  causation  and  the  prevention  of  in- 
fectious diseases  in  industrial  work  is  sufficiently 
obvious.  The  identification  and  treatment  of 
industrial  diseases  and  the  appreciation  of  indus- 
trial hazards  to  health  and  ways  of  preventing 
them,  are  parts  of  the  general  modern  recognition 
of  the  importance  of  the  individual  and  the  duties 
of  society  toward  him.  Here  the  doctor,  the  phi- 
lanthropist, and  the  legislator  have  worked  in 
helpful  partnership,  and  the  industrial  employer 
cannot  afford  to  refuse  his  cooperation. 

An  additional  word  may  be  said  of  a  specific 
phase  of  these  endeavors  that  has  been  coming 
into  prominence  in  recent  years  under  the  general 
title  of  "  welfare  work."  A  recent  writer  (46)  has 
thus  summarized  its  activities:  "With  reference 
to  the  physical  condition  of  the  wage  earners,  wel- 
fare work  includes  such  things  as  good  air  and 
light,  lockers  for  clothing,  dressing  rooms,  baths, 
the  provision  of  wholesome  food  for  the  midday 
meal,  rest-rooms  for  women,  medical  examina- 
tions, first  aid  to  the  injured,  free  hospital  beds, 
visiting  nurses,  opportunities  for  organized  ath- 
letics, and  vacations  with  pay.  Under  the  head  of 
economic  agencies  it  includes  such  things  as  shop 
schools,  technical  lectures,  and  the  circulation  of 
technical  literature;  prizes  and  bonuses  for  sug- 
gestions, and  for  length  and  regularity  of  service; 


82  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

sickness,  accident,  and  old-age  pensions;  improved 
housing  facilities,  and  agencies  for  the  promotion  of 
thrift.  Upon  general  moral  and  social  conditions 
it  exerts  an  influence,  not  only  through  the  above- 
mentioned  channels,  but  by  means  of  amusement 
facilities,  such  as  concerts  and  entertainments; 
by  clubs  and  societies;  through  the  influence  of  a 
social  secretary;  through  the  precautionary  exclu- 
sion of  undesirable  persons;  and  through  the 
agency  of  artistic  surroundings,  not  only  within 
doors,  but  as  the  result  of  the  landscaping  of  the 
factory  grounds." 

Such  a  comprehensive  program  for  human  bet- 
terment is  commendable,  and  most,  if  not  all,  of  its 
features  are  practicable.  The  importance  of  wel- 
fare work  is  now  generally  recognized,  and  it  is 
being  gradually  installed  as  an  essential  part  of 
industry.  Its  name  "  welfare  work,"  is,  I  think, 
somewhat  unfortunate,  for  it  contains  an  implica- 
tion of  a  repellent  excess  of  virtue.  Its  too  zeal- 
ous or  too  precipitate  imposition  upon  an  unwilling 
body  of  employees  has,  at  times,  aroused  opposi- 
tion among  them,  and  their  lack  of  appreciation  or 
positive  rejection  of  its  benefits  has,  at  times,  led 
employers  to  abandon  it  after  a  trial.  But  such 
failures  should  not  blind  one  to  its  real  value. 
Welfare  work  should  not  be  too  rapidly  developed 
in  a  factory;  it  should  avoid  arousing  the  suspicion 


INDUSTRIAL  MEDICINE  83 

that  it  is  a  gift,  carrying  with  it  the  secret  expec- 
tation that  it  is  to  be  paid  for  by  increased  pro- 
duction; it  should  not  seem  too  paternalistic;  it 
should  not  pry  too  much  into  the  worker's  private 
life;  it  should  not  seem  to  be  imposed  upon  the 
worker;  but  it  should  be  established  and  admin- 
istered as  a  bond  of  mutual  helpfulness  between 
employer  and  employee. 

All  bonds  of  such  a  nature,  all  things  that  lead 
to  the  advancement  of  the  health  and  content- 
ment of  the  worker  and  promote  his  good  will, 
all  these  act  as  lubricants  to  the  human  machine 
and  are  indispensable  to  its  highest  efficiency. 


XIV 

FOOD1 

The  human  machine  like  other  motors  must  be 
supplied  with  fuel,  and  this  should  contain,  in 
latent  form,  at  least  the  amount  of  energy  that 
is  to  be  transformed,  partly  in  the  performance  of 
the  work  and  partly  in  maintaining  the  heat  of  the 
body.  But  unlike  other  motors,  which  require  but 
one  kind  of  fuel,  such  as  coal  or  gasoline,  the 
human  machine  can  thrive  best  when  it  has  various 
kinds,  and  these  are  known  as  food-stuffs.  While 
there  is  considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
the  most  advantageous  proportion  of  human  food- 
stuffs a  reasonable  combination  of  the  three  main 
varieties  is  that  in  which  proteins  supply  about 
15  per  cent  of  the  required  energy,  and  fats  and 
carbohydrates  the  remainder,  the  carbohydrates 
contributing  much  more  energy  than  the  fats. 
Persons  who  are  engaged  in  muscular  activity 
require  more  food  than  do  those  living  a  sedentary 
life,  and  the  added  amount  required  is,  in  general, 
proportional  to  the  added  amount  of  energy  that 
is  expended;  here  the  added  amount  can  be  sup- 
plied best  by  added  fats  and  carbohydrates,  espe- 

1  See  Bibliography  (47). 
84 


FOOD  85 

cially  the  latter.  The  relation  between  occu- 
pation and  fuel  requirement  is  illustrated  by  the 
following  table  which  has  been  compiled  from 
various  authorities  (48). 


Occupatic 


Calories       Source  of  calculations. 


22.50 


Clerk  at  desk 

Sales  clerk,  machinery  watcher, 

house  worker 2500 

Light,  muscular  work 2S00 

Carpenter,  mason 3200 

Farmer 3.500 

Excavator 4000  Tiaerstedt 


Atwater  and  Bryant 

Lusk 

Atwater  and  Bryant 

Tigerstedt 

Lusk 


Probably  most  men  working  in  munition  factories 
require  a  daily  income  of  energy*  measured  by 
3000-4000  heat-units,  or  calories,  while  the  work- 
ing woman's  requirement  is  S0-90  per  cent  of  that 
amount  or  even  less. 

Mrs.  Rose  (49)  has  suggested  the  following  day's 
food  plan  for  a  working  man  doing  severe  work. 

Fuel  Requirement :  3500-4000  Calories. 

Breakfast.  caio™.. 
Cereal  (oatmeal,  cornmeal,  etc.;    fried   occasion- 
ally)   150-300 

Sausage,  or  salt  fish,  or  liver  and  bacon 200-300 

Toast,  or  muffins,  or  cornbread 300-400 

Oleomargarine 150-300 

Milk  for  cereal  and  coffee 100 

Sugar  for  cereal  and  coffee 100 

1000-1200 


86  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

Luncheon. 

Beans,  peas  or  lentils  (baked,  or  in  soup  or  stew), 

or  macaroni  and  cheese,  or  cheese 200-400 

Bread  (rye,  graham,  white,  etc.) 200-400 

Fruit,  fresh  or  as  sauce  (bananas,  apples,  apricots, 

prunes) 100-150 

Cake  or  pie 200-400 

Milk  and  sugar  for  coffee 200 


1000-1400 
Dinner. 

Meat  pie,  or  stuffed  meat  and  potatoes,  or  meat 

stew  with  dumplings 300-400 

Savory  vegetable  (onions,  tomatoes  or  cabbage) .  100-200 

Bread 200-400 

Suet  pudding,  or  bread  pudding,  or  creamy  rice 

pudding 250-400 

Milk  and  sugar  for  coffee 200 

1400-1800 

If  the  proper  amount  of  fuel  is  not  provided  for 
the  human  machine  the  proper  amount  of  work  is 
not  obtained  from  it  in  the  long  run — this  result 
is  just  as  certain  as  it  is  with  the  non-living  motor 
— lack  of  fuel  leads  to  fatigue  and  diminished  pro- 
duction. Moreover,  it  is  not  sufficient  simply  to 
provide  the  proper  amount,  but  it  is  imperative 
that  it  be  provided  in  a  digestible  state — indiges- 
tion conduces  to  fatigue  and  thus  helps  to  limit 
output.  It  is  thus  directly  advantageous  to  both 
the  employer  and  the  worker  that  the  latter  be 


FOOD  87 

properly  fed.  The  worker  is  rarely  acquainted 
with  scientific  dietetics  and,  because  of  his  lack  of 
knowledge  of  what  constitutes  a  balanced  ration, 
of  skill  in  buying,  and  of  wise  ways  of  cooking,  if 
left  to  his  own  judgment,  he  is  more  apt  to  be  ill 
fed  than  well  fed.  Here  the  employer  can  per- 
form a  real  service.  In  attempting  to  reform  the 
worker's  nutritive  habits  in  his  own  home  the 
employer  is,  perhaps,  limited  to  education  and 
the  giving  of  advice,  but  at  least  one  scientifi- 
cally prepared  meal  can  advantageously  be 
served  to  the  workers  at  the  factory.  The  rea- 
sons for  this  are  many.  The  American  investiga- 
tors (1)  have  found  that  a  considerable  proportion 
of  the  workers  in  the  munition  factories  come 
to  the  plant  in  the  morning  without  breakfast, 
having  risen  early  and  perhaps  travelled  a 
long  distance,  and  then  work  through  the  first 
spell  without  any  food  whatever.  Restaurants  in 
the  vicinity  of  a  factory  are  apt  to  be  inadequate 
in  size  and  equipment.  Food  brought  from  home 
in  a  lunch  box  must  be  cold  and  is  often  ill  bal- 
anced from  the  nutritive  standpoint.  If  the 
worker's  home  is  near  enough  to  tempt  him  to  go 
to  it,  he  cannot  profitably  do  so  if  the  greater  part 
of  his  time  must  be  spent  in  travelling  to  and  fro 
and  only  a  small  remainder  is  left  for  a  quick  and 
hence  indigestible  bolting  of  his  food.     These  facts 


88  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

have  appealed  to  many  progressive  managers,  and 
the  luncheon  provided  at  the  factory  is  now  com- 
mon. To  secure  the  best  results  it  should  be 
planned  by  a  scientific  dietitian,  and  every  effort 
should  be  made  to  enable  the  worker  to  secure  a 
perfectly  balanced  ration.  Care  should  be  ex- 
pended in  procuring  the  proper  quality  of  foods 
and  in  preparing  them  in  an  appetizing  and  diges- 
tible form.  They  should  be  served  in  a  dining- 
room  and  not  in  the  factory  work  rooms.  Service 
should  be  prompt,  and  probably  the  accepted 
method  of  the  cafeteria  is  best.  Adequate  time 
should  be  allowed  for  eating.  The  prices  charged 
should  be  low  enough  to  make  it  advantageous  to 
the  worker  to  seek  this  meal  rather  than  one  from 
neighboring  restaurants  or  from  his  own  lunch 
box.  If  the  employer  feels  that  he  must  have  a 
pecuniary  return  from  this  addition  to  the  worker's 
comfort  he  should  seek  his  profit  from  increased 
production  and  a  better  maintenance  of  working 
power,  rather  than  directly  from  the  sale  of  food 
across  the  canteen  counter.  The  British  Com- 
mittee has  been  much  impressed  by  the  good  re- 
sults following  the  establishment  of  industrial  can- 
teens. They  say:  "  These  benefits  have  been 
direct  and  indirect.  Among  the  former  has  been 
a  marked  improvement  in  the  health  and  physical 
condition  of  the  workers,  a  reduction  in  sickness, 


FOOD  89 

less  absence  and  broken  time,  less  tendency  to 
alcoholism,  and  an  increased  efficiency  and  output; 
among  the  latter  has  been  a  saving  of  the  time  of 
the  workman,  a  salutary  though  brief  change  from 
the  workshop,  greater  contentment,  and  a  better 
midday  ventilation  of  the  workshop." 


XV 

SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT 

The  most  promising  method  of  promoting  effi- 
ciency that  has  acquired  prominence  in  recent 
years  is  that  which  is  called  commonly  "  scientific 
management"  (50)  and  frequently  "efficiency  engi- 
neering; "  an  occasional  name  is  "  Taylorism,"  a 
title  that  appears  more  often  in  the  European 
than  the  American  literature.  The  method  origi- 
nated with  the  American,  Frederick  W.  Taylor, 
and  has  been  gradually  developed  during  the  past 
forty  years.  Over  it  there  has  been  a  heated  con- 
troversy, with  fervid  zealous  advocates  on  the  one 
side,  the  more  extreme  even  looking  upon  it  almost 
as  a  religion,  and  on  the  other  bitter  opponents. 
Out  of  it  has  grown  the  new  profession  of  the  effi- 
ciency engineer,  the  industrial  engineer,  or  the 
industrial  counsellor,  and  the  system  has  been  in- 
troduced into  a  considerable  number  of  industrial 
establishments  in  this  country,  which  are  said 
(1915)  to  include  some  eighty  different  industries. 

In  both  the  principles  and  the  practices  of  sci- 
entific management  there  is  much  diversity; 
nevertheless,  certain  features  stand  out  promi- 

90 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT         01 

nently.  In  it  specialization  is  carried  to  a  high 
degree.  It  requires  a  relatively  large  adminis- 
trative staff,  and  the  work  is  planned,  even  in  its 
minutest  details,  by  this  force.  Endeavor  is  often 
made  to*  secure  only  especially  competent  workers 
and  those  specially  adapted  to  the  tasks  to  be  per- 
formed. A  careful  analysis  of  each  task  is  made 
and  each  worker  is  limited  to  a  single  opera- 
tion. In  performing  it  unnecessary  motions  are 
omitted.  A  time  study  by  a  stop-watch  is  made 
and  the  average  time  is  determined  by  which  com- 
petent workmen  can  perform  the  operation.  This 
becomes  the  standard  time  for  the  operation,  and 
all  workers  are  expected  thereafter  to  conform  to 
it.  Full  and  exact  instructions  are  given  for  the 
performance  of  the  task  in  the  manner  desired. 
Much  attention  is  given  to  standardizing  tools 
and  other  equipment  and  adapting  them  exactly 
to  the  work.  By  some  system  of  wage  bonuses 
endeavor  is  made  to  induce  the  worker  to  speed 
up  to  his  maximum,  and  often  he  is  penalized  if 
he  falls  below  the  standard  set.  By  carefully 
planned  routing  and  scheduling  the  material  to 
be  used  is  always  at  his  hand,  and  no  time  is  lost 
needlessly  in  waiting  for  material  or  in  passing 
it  on  from  one  worker  or  department  to  the  next. 
The  advocates  of  scientific  management  profess 
loudly  against  fatiguing  or  exhausting  the  worker. 


92  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

The  results  of  the  employment  of  scientific  man- 
agement on  production  are  said  to  be  remarkable. 
While  in  a  cotton  factory  production  was  increased 
only  20  to  30  per  cent,  the  increase  in  a  factory 
manufacturing  certain  special  forms  of  machinery 
was  reported  as  100  per  cent,  in  a  government 
arsenal  150  per  cent,  in  the  process  of  brick- 
laying 170  per  cent,  in  a  second  machine  factory 
200  per  cent,  in  the  process  of  shovelling  268  per 
cent,  and  in  the  handling  of  pig  iron  280  per  cent. 
Mr.  Taylor  thinks  that  with  scientific  manage- 
ment it  is  "  safe  and  conservative  to  say  that  the 
output  of  the  individual  workman  has  been,  on  the 
average,  doubled." 

When  one  reads  the  glowing  accounts  of  the 
theories  of  scientific  management  and  hears  of 
results  like  these  mentioned  the  first  effect  is  a 
feeling  of  profound  admiration  for  the  manner  in 
which  the  system  has  been  logically  thought  out, 
urged  upon  the  industrial  world,  and  put  into  prac- 
tice. Here,  at  last,  seems  to  be  the  long-sought 
method  by  which  the  trying  problem  of  efficiency 
is  to  be  solved.  It  is  only  when  one  gains  a  more 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  differing  theories 
as  promulgated  by  different  leaders  and  with  the 
differing  modes  of  application  of  the  method  does 
the  illusion  of  perfection  become  somewhat 
dimmed, 


SCIENTIFIC   MANAGEMENT  93 

No  two  of  the  acknowledged  leaders  in  scientific 
management,  Taylor,  Gantt,  Emerson  and  others, 
agree  upon  its  fundamental  principles.  More- 
over, when  the  principles  come  to  be  put  into 
practice  there  is  lacking  the  exactness  which  the 
claim  to  be  "  scientific  "  would  seem  to  require. 
For  example,  in  engaging  workers  and  assigning 
them  to  their  tasks  no  specific  and  exact  tests, 
physiological  or  psychological,  are  used  to  deter- 
mine the  worker's  fitness;  the  methods  used  are 
not  essentially  different  from  the  conventional 
methods  used  in  non-scientific  shops.  In  making 
time  studies  of  a  specific  task  for  the  purpose  of 
determining  a  standard  time  for  its  performance, 
sometimes  only  the  fastest  workers  are  selected, 
sometimes  only  the  slowest,  sometimes  only  the 
average.  Moreover,  when  time  measurements 
have  been  made  by  the  stop-watch  the  so-called 
"  necessary  "  time  for  doing  the  task  is  calculated. 
In  making  this  calculation  different  methods  ap- 
pear to  be  followed:  sometimes  the  average  of  all 
the  figures  is  used,  sometimes  the  median,  some- 
times the  most  frequently  recurring  figure,  some- 
times the  minimum;  and  sometimes  the  figures 
obtained  are  arbitrarily  manipulated  to  obtain 
finally  the  "  necessary "  time.  Allowances  are 
then  made  for  various  modifying  factors,  such  as 
necessary  delays,  machine  breakdowns,  possible 


94  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

errors  in  observation,  etc. — into  all  of  which  the 
unmeasured  judgment  of  the  observer  enters. 
The  resultant  standard  time  represents  thus  a 
combination  of  exact  measurement  and  inexact 
judgment,  which  may  vary  greatly  with  the  per- 
sonal equation  of  the  observer.  In  setting  tasks 
adequate  attention  does  not  appear  to  be  given 
to  the  natural  physiological  differences  of  individ- 
uals. In  fixing  rates  of  payment  the  current  mar- 
ket rate  for  the  locality,  instead  of  the  expected 
output  or  the  expected  degree  of  efficiency,  is 
usually  taken  as  the  basis,  and  there  is  rarely  any 
guarantee  that  the  rate  will  not  be  cut  if  the  wages 
for  the  operation  mount  to  an  alarmingly  high 
figure.  There  appears  to  be  no  reliable  evidence 
that  employees  under  scientific  management  are 
overworked,  nevertheless  in  deciding  whether 
fatigue  is  present,  no  exact  tests  are  made — indeed, 
the  leaders,  while  talking  much  of  fatigue,  do  not 
appear  to  have  any  adequate  knowledge  of  the 
physiology  of  the  phenomenon,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  statement  of  one  that  "  Fatigue  is  due  to  a 
secretion  in  the  blood."  Furthermore,  usually  no 
careful  and  adequate  precautions  are  taken,  such 
as  the  introduction  of  resting  periods,  to  avoid  the 
incidence  of  fatigue.  Little  or  no  consideration  is 
given  to  the  length  of  the  working  period — one  of 
the  leading  prophets  is  reported  indeed  as  saying 
that  this  is  a  moral  question!      The  practice  of 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  95 

scientifically  managed  shops  in  the  matter  of 
guarding  the  worker  against  the  possibility  of 
injury  by  accidents  does  not  appear  to  be  essen- 
tially different  from  that  in  other  establishments. 
Facts  like  these  do  not  oblige  us  to  condemn 
scientific  management  as  a  whole,  but  they  cannot 
fail  to  cast  doubts  on  the  divinity  of  its  prophets 
and  make  one  suspect  that  their  claims  concerning 
the  value  of  their  principles  are  somewhat  exag- 
gerated. Thus,  while  scientific  management  is  to 
be  highly  commended  for  what  it  has  accom- 
plished in  organizing  the  administration  of  indus- 
try and  in  improving  the  material  equipment  with 
which  industry  works,  in  its  dealings  with  the 
human  machine  it  falls  far  short  of  an  ideal.  It 
does  not  relieve  the  prevailing  ignorance  of  the 
human  machine  that  is  shown  by  the  factory  man- 
agement, nor  does  it  offer  a  panacea  for  the  cor- 
rection of  evils  that  oppose  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  human  efficiency.  It  is,  indeed,  perhaps 
the  most  important  of  all  modern  movements 
that  have  as  their  object  the  general  promotion 
of  industrial  efficiency,  but,  like  all  specific  systems 
that  attempt  glowing  reforms  in  human  activity, 
of  which  the  history  of  medicine  offers  a  succession 
of  instructive  examples,  it  is,  I  believe,  destined 
to  pass  away  as  a  system,  while  contributing  what- 
ever of  good  it  possesses  to  the  common  stock  of 
agencies  in  industrial  advance. 


XVI 

THE  PHYSIOLOGICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  WORK 

There  is  one  element,  which  has  been  men- 
tioned in  scientific  management,  that  deserves 
further  consideration  by  us,  namely,  the  analysis 
of  industrial  operations  from  the  physiological 
standpoint.  This  analysis  has  usually  been  car- 
ried on,  especially  by  the  followers  of  scientific 
management,  by  means  of  simple  ocular  demon- 
stration, a  method  that  is  obviously  imperfect. 
Gilbreth  (11)  improved  this  by  using  the  cinemato- 
graph with  various  mechanical  devices  added. 
Several  European  physiologists  have  employed  the 
accepted  methods  of  the  physiological  laboratory. 
Among  these  are  Imbert  and  Amar.  Imbert  and 
Mestre  (51)  connected  a  loaded  baggage  truck  to 
tambours  recording  on  a  revolving  drum  and  thus 
obtained  records  of  the  motions  involved  in  hand- 
ling it  (Fig.  11).  In  transporting  sacks  weighing 
60  kilograms  along  a  horizontal  cemented  ground 
they  found  that  in  a  ten-hour  day  the  work  of  a 
man  would  equal  the  sum  of  the  following  items: 

1.  A  vertical  ascent  of  70  meters. 

2.  A  horizontal  course  of  about  30  kilometers. 

96 


Fiu.  11.— Illustrating  a  method  of  physiological  analysis  of  an 
industrial  operation.     (Imbert  and  Mcstre.) 


ORGANIZATION  OF  WORK  97 

3.  The  movement  through  these  distances  of  a 
total  load  of  18,600  kilograms  by  the  muscles  of 
the  arms. 

They  found  further  that  the  fatigue  resulting 
from  one  hour  of  this  work  is  still  far  from  being 
dissipated  by  an  absolute  rest  of  two  hours.  They 
think  it  entirely  feasible  to  make  the  principle 
of  the  method  generally  applicable  to  industrial 
operations. 

A  mar  (52)  has  placed  tambours  over  the  various 
muscles  and  has  recorded  their  contractions.  He 
has  also  registered  the  beats  of  the  heart  and  the 
movements  of  respiration,  as  to  both  rate  and  in- 
tensity, and  the  amount  of  the  gaseous  exchange 
in  respiration.  From  the  latter  he  has  calculated 
the  energy  expended.  He  has  also  made  use  of 
the  cinematograph.  He  has  thus  endeavored  to 
determine  with  a  fair  degree  of  mathematical  ex- 
actness for  various  fundamental  operations  the 
physiological  requisites  for  maximum  production 
with  minimum  fatigue,  in  other  words,  the  most 
economic  physiological  attributes  of  the  work. 
Thus,  for  the  simple  operation  of  filing  metal  he 
finds  that  to  obtain  the  best  results  in  the  filing 
of  brass  with  a  half-round  file,  35  centimeters  in 
length,  the  following  conditions  are  essential: 

The  body  of  the  subject  should  be  vertical,  without  stiffness, 
distant  20  cm.  from  the  vise,  and  the  latter  at  the  height  of 


98  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

the  navel;  the  position  of  the  feet  should  be  such  that  their 
angle  to  one  another  should  be  6S°  and  the  distance  between 
the  toes  of  the  two  feet  25  cm. ;  the  left  arm  should  be  com- 
pletely extended  and  should  bear  down  upon  the  tool  a  little 
more  heavily  than  the  right  arm — 8500  kg.  and  7500  kg., 
respectively.  The  return  of  the  file  should  be  by  a  simple 
sliding  motion,  without  any  pressure  from  the  arms;  the 
rhythm  of  the  movement  should  be  about  70  per  minute. 
With  these  conditions  fulfilled,  the  operation  should  continue 
five  minutes  and  be  followed  by  one  minute  of  complete  rest 
during  which  the  arms  should  hang  at  the  sides  of  the  body. 
Respirations  and  heart  beats,  respectively,  should  not  increase 
more  than  25  and  20  j>er  cent  in  rate  in  comparison  with  their 
figures  at  rest.  The  local  fatigue  of  the  forearm  is  then 
endurable  and  general  fatigue  is  hardly  felt.  Under  these 
conditions,  the  maximum  work  is  at  least  twice  that  of  most 
workmen.  In  seven  hours  of  such  effective  work  600  gin. 
of  brass  filings  -In mid  be  obtained. 

This  is  the  ideal  physiological  picture.  Most  work- 
men do  not  attain  it,  but  rather  give  a  median 
result  with  movements  of  fair  regularity.  With 
the  novice,  however,  the  position  of  the  body  is 
bad  (Fig.  12),  the  muscular  movements  are  irreg- 
ular, awkward,  badly  directed,  too  intense,  and 
too  sudden,  and  breathlessness  and  temporary 
fatigue  appear  and  require  too  early  cessation  of 
the  efforts  (Figs.  13  and  14).  Amar  has  similarly 
analyzed  the  work  of  planing  wood,  transporting 
burdens,  such  as  the  soldier's  equipment  on  a  level 
and  up  an  incline,  bicycling,  spading  the  earth, 
wheeling  a  barrow,  etc. 


Fig.  12. — Physiological  comparison  of  the  trained  (left)  and  the 
untrained  (right)  worker  in  the  operation  of  filing.  (From 
Amar,   Organisation  Physiologique  du  Travail.) 


ORGANIZATION  OF  WORK  99 

Such  investigations  as  these  offer  an  enticing 
field  of  study  for  the  physiologist.  Their  value  in 
demonstrating  that  ideals  can  be  made  realities 
cannot  be  denied ;  but  it  is  impossible  at  present 
to  foretell  their  full  utilitarian  value.  If,  as  some 
of  the  followers  of  scientific  management  antici- 
pate, specialization  in  industrialism  is  to  be  carried 
to  an  extreme,  if  there  are  to  be  no  skilled  workers 
in  the  future,  if  the  unskilled  mass  can  be  trained 
in  a  few  minutes  to  perform  the  operation  that  is 
to  win  the  worker  living  wages  and  more,  the  more 
exact  methods  of  training  would  seem  superfluous 
and  uneconomical.  But,  if,  as  many  prophetic 
thinkers  maintain,  there  is  still  to  be  a  place  for 
vocational  education  it  can  only  be  completely 
satisfactory  when  it  is  placed  on  a  sound  physio- 
logical basis,  and  in  such  case  there  is  need  of  a 
great  extension  of  the  physiological  analysis  and 
organization  of  specific  tasks. 


xvn 

SUMMARY 


What  now  are  some  of  the  conclusions  that  we 
are  justified  in  drawing  from  the  present  tendencies 
of  research  concerning  ways  in  which  industrial 
efficiency    and    productivity    can    be    promoted? 
The  qualifications  of  prospective  workers  should 
be  determined  so  far  as  possible  by  exact  tests,  and 
workers  should  be  assigned  to  tasks  in  accordance 
with  their  qualifications.     A  feeling  of  mutual  con- 
fidence should  be  established  between  the  man- 
agement and  the  worker,  and  nothing  should  be 
done  by  either  to  destroy  that  feeling.     The  worker 
should  not  wilfully  limit  his  production,  but  should 
work  according  to  his  capacity.     Wages  should  be 
adequate  for  work  done,  should  enable  the  worker 
to  live  decently,  and  once  fixed  should  not  be  low- 
ered if  the  worker  is  competent  to  earn  the  rate 
agreed  upon.     The  length  of  the  working  period 
should  tend  toward  a  shortening  rather  than  a 
lengthening,  and  each  of  the  two  spells  should  be 
broken  by  at  least  one  recess  period.     The  lunch- 
eon recess  should  not  be  less  than  one-half  hour, 

100 


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Fig.  13. — Records  oi  physiological  movements  in  the  operation  of  filing 
by  an  experienced  worker.  From  above  downward  the  successive 
curves  represent    respectively:     The  vertical   pressure   of   the   two 

hands;  the  vortical  pressure  of  the  left  hand;  the  horizontal  pressure 
of  the  left  hand;  the  horizontal  pressure  of  the  right  hand;  the  respi- 
ratory movements;  the  tune  in  seconds.  (From  Amar,  Organisation 
Physiologique  du  Travail.) 


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Fig.  14.— Records  of  physiological  movements  in  the  operation  of  filing 
by  an  inexperienced  worker.  From  above  downward  the  succes- 
sive curves  represent  respectively:  The  vertical  pressure  of  the  two 
hands;  the  vertical  pressure  of  the  left  hand;  the  horizontal  pres- 
sure of  the  left  hand;  the  horizontal  pressure  of  the  right  hand;  the 
respiratory  movements;  the  time  in  seconds.  (From  Amar,  Organi- 
sation Physiologique  du  Travail.) 


SUMMARY  101 

and  one  hour  is  preferable.  If  night  work  is  neces- 
sitated it  should  be  confined  to  men  only,  and  the 
working  night  should  not  be  longer  than  the  work- 
ing day.  Exact  records  of  the  output  of  all  indi- 
vidual workers  should  be  kept,  where  the  nature 
of  the  work  makes  it  possible,  and  the  effects  on 
output  of  changes  in  the  working  conditions  should 
be  carefully  observed.  Constant  watch  should  be 
made,  with  the  help  of  exact  tests  if  possible,  for 
evidences  of  over-fatigue,  and  if  they  are  found, 
the  conditions  of  labor  for  the  individual  should  be 
lightened.  Overtime  should  be  resorted  to,  if  at 
all,  only  in  occasional  emergencies,  and  should  be 
followed  by  at  least  an  equal  period  of  rest,  taken 
from  the  following  day's  work.  Six  working  days 
should  be  followed  by  one  day  of  rest.  Legal  holi- 
days should  be  strictly  observed,  and  a  half-holiday 
on  a  week  day  is  advisable.  Women  can  be  advan- 
tageously employed  for  a  large  number  and  variety 
of  the  operations  that  do  not  demand  great  mus- 
cular strength,  and  they  are  especially  efficient  as 
inspectors;  they  should  not  be  given  night  work. 
Any  physical  conditions  of  the  shop,  such  as  bad 
lighting,  poor  ventilation,  and  excessive  heat,  that 
conduce  to  fatigue,  should  be  eliminated.  Modern 
sanitary  provisions  for  the  worker's  comfort  and 
health  should  be  maintained  within  the  factory, 
anc!  rest  rooms  and,  so  far  as  practicable,  chairs 


102  THE   HUMAN  MACHINE 

should  be  provided  for  women.  Safety  devices 
against  the  hazards  of  work  should  be  main- 
tained. If  good  restaurants,  adequate  in  size,  do 
not  exist  near  the  factory,  the  company  should 
provide  dining  rooms  where  food,  planned  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  modern  scientific  dietetics 
and  well  cooked,  can  be  had  at  cost  prices  for  such 
workers  as  do  not  live  near  the  factory.  The  com- 
pany should  maintain  at  the  factory  a  medical  and 
nursing  staff,  and  should  attend  to  all  cases  of 
sickness  or  injury  in  which  first  aid  is  required. 
If  comfortable  housing  for  the  workers  is  not  avail- 
able, the  company  should  devise  plans  by  which  it 
may  be  had  at  reasonable  prices.  Employers 
should  have  decent  regard  for  the  welfare  of  their 
employees  outside  the  factory,  but  should '  not 
impose  their  attentions  too  autocratically.  Work- 
ers, once  proved  competent,  should  be  retained, 
and  every  effort  should  be  made  to  secure  a  low 
labor  turnover.  During  the  war  emergency  spe- 
cial efforts  should  be  made  to  stimulate  the  patriot- 
ism of  the  workers,  and  they  should  be  made  to 
realize  that  they  individually  have  an  important 
part  to  play  in  the  winning  of  the  war  and  in  help- 
ing to  establish  in  the  world  the  rule  of  right  and 
justice.  In  so  far  as  these  conditions,  formidable, 
I  will  allow,  in  number  and  difficulty  of  attainment 
but  not  impossible,  can  be  established,  industrial 


SUMMARY  103 

efficiency  will  be  by  so  much  achieved,  and  the 
ending  of  the  war  will  be  by  bo  much  hastened. 

It  was  only  a  few  months  ago  that  a  clear-sighted 
Frenchman  (53)  wrote:  "  A  nation  finds  itself 
to-day  in  danger  of  defeat,  not  because  it  does 
not  know  how  to  fight,  but  because  it  does  not 
know  how  to  manufacture." 

The  war  will  end,  however,  and  industrial  effort 
will  still  continue.  The  principles  which  I  have 
here  been  presenting  will,  I  trust,  prove  to  be  per- 
tinent long  after  the  war  has  ceased. 

I  cannot  close  this  brief  sketch  without  pointing 
out  what  seems  to  me  a  close  parallelism  in  their 
historical  development  between  medicine  and  in- 
dustrialism. In  both  there  is  a  conflict  between 
the  old  and  the  new,  between  empiricism  and  tra- 
dition on  the  one  side  and  science  on  the  other. 
In  medicine  in  recent  decades  science  has  been 
rapidly  winning,  and  the  chief  single  agency  in  this 
victory  has  been  the  experimental  method,  the 
method  which  more  than  all  others  characterizes 
modern  science.  Industrialism  is  not  so  far  ad- 
vanced in  its  evolution  as  is  medicine;  it  is  still 
lamentably  under  the  control  of  empiricism  and 
tradition;  but  science  is  making  progress  here. 
In  this  general  industrial  advance  it  is  becoming 
increasingly  clear  that  in  all  that  pertains  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  worker  the  physiological  point  of 


104  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

view  is  the  most  helpful  point  of  view.  In  our 
analysis  of  the  conditions  of  efficiency  we  always 
come  ultimately  to  the  underlying  fact  that  the 
worker  is  a  physiological  mechanism  and  must  be 
treated  as  such.  Here  is  the  proper  scientific 
basis  for  the  organization  of  industrial  work.  We 
already  have  the  promising  beginnings  of  a  science 
of  industrial  physiology.  What  is  needed  now  is  a 
great  extension  of  the  method  of  experiment,  partly 
in  laboratories,  but  especially  in  factories,  by  which 
facts  may  be  accumulated,  principles  may  be  es- 
tablished, and  this  new  science  may  be  rationally 
developed.  In  this  direction  I  believe  that  indus- 
try has  in  America  to-day  an  unparalleled  oppor- 
tunity for  progress. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1.  In  the  United  States,  the  Public  Health  Ser- 
vice has  been  conducting,  since  July,  1917,  an  in- 
vestigation of  the  conditions  of  labor  in  certain  of 
the  munition  factories,  for  the  purpose  of  discov- 
ering whether  excessive  fatigue  is  present,  how  it 
may  be  avoided,  and  how  a  continuous  maximum 
production  of  war  supplies  may  be  secured.  The 
work  has  been  carried  on  with  the  active  coop- 
eration of  the  Divisional  Committee  on  Industrial 
Fatigue  under  the  Advisory  Commission  of  the 
Council  of  National  Defense.  This  Committee 
has  now  been  constituted  also  the  Sub-committee 
on  Fatigue  in  Industrial  Pursuits  of  the  National 
Research  Council.  The  membership  of  the  Divi- 
sional Committee  is  as  follows: 

Thomas  Darlington,  Secretary  Welfare  Committee,  American 
Iron  and  Steel  Institute,  Chairman. 

Frederic  S.  Lee,  Professor  of  Physiology,  Columbia  Univer- 
sity; Chairman  of  the  Sub-committee  on  Fatigue  in 
Industrial  Pursuits  of  the  National  Research  Council; 
Consulting  Physiologist,  Public  Health  Service;  Execu- 
tive Secretary. 

Robert  E.  Chaddock,  Associate  Professor  of  Statistics,  Colum- 
bia University. 

105 


106  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

Raymond  Dodge,  Professor  of  Psychology,  Wesleyan  Uni- 
versity. 

David  L.  Edsall,  Professor  of  Clinical  Medicine,  Harvard 
Medical  School. 

P.  Sargant  Florence,  Organizing  Secretary  of  the  Committee 
of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science 
appointed  to  investigate  Fatigue  from  the  Economic 
Standpoint;  recently  Investigator  of  Industrial  Fatigue 
under  the  British  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Commit- 
tee; Scientific  Assistant  (Supervising  Field  Investigator), 
Public  Health  Service. 

Josephine  Goldmark,  Publication  Secretary,  National  Con- 
sumers' League;    Special  Expert,  Public  Health  Service. 

Ernest  G.  Martin,  Professor  of  Physiology,  Leland  Stanford 
University;  Scientific  Assistant  (Physiologist),  Public 
Health  Service;  Captain  Sanitary  Corps,  U.  S.  A. 

A.  H.  Ryan,  Professor  of  Physiology,  Tufts  Medical  College; 
Scientific  Assistant,  Public  Health  Service. 

J.  W.  Schereschewsky,  Assistant  Surgeon  General,  in  Charge 
of  Division  of  Scientific  Research,  Public  Health  Service. 

Ernest  L.  Scott,  Associate  in  Physiology,  Columbia  Univer- 
sity; Captain,  Sanitary  Corps,  U.  S.  A. 

Of  the  many  data  which  have  been  accumulated 
by  the  Public  Health  Service  in  the  above  investi- 
gation and  are  quoted  in  the  present  text  few  have 
yet  appeared  in  print.  They  are  here  made  public 
by  the  courtesy  of  the  Service.  Full  reports  of  the 
investigation  will  ultimately  be  published  by  the 
Service.  The  Divisional  Committee  has  published 
(1918)  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  How  Industrial  Fa- 
tigue May  be  Reduced,"  which  constitutes  No.  1 
of  the  Welfare  Work  Series  issued  by  the  Com- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  107 

mittee  on  Labor  under  the  Advisory  Commission 
of  the  Council  of  National  Defense. 

2.  In  Great  Britain,  the  Health  of  Munition 
Workers  Committee,  under  the  Ministry  of  Muni- 
tions, has  conducted,  since  September,  1915,  an 
investigation  of  the  conditions  of  labor  in  munition 
factories.  The  following  reports  of  this  work  have 
been  published : 

Memorandum 

No. 

1.  Report  on  Sunday  Labour.     1915. 

2.  Welfare  Supervision.     1915. 

3.  Report  on  Industrial  Canteens.     1915. 

4.  Employment  of  Women.     1916. 

5.  Hours  of  Work.     1916. 

6.  Canteen  Construction  and  Equipment.     1916. 

7.  Industrial  Fatigue  and  its  Causes.     1916. 

8.  Special  Industrial  Diseases.     1916. 

9.  Ventilation  and  Lighting  of  Munition    Factories   and 

Workshops.     1916. 

10.  Sickness  and  Injury.     1916. 

11.  Investigation  of  Workers'  Food  and  Suggestions  as  to 

Dietary.     1916. 

12.  Statistical  Information  Concerning  Output  in  Rela- 

tion to  Hours  of  Work.     1916. 

13.  Juvenile  Employment.     1916. 

14.  Washing  Facilities  and  Baths.     1916. 

15.  The  Effect  of  Industrial  Conditions  upon  Eyesight. 

1916. 

16.  Medical  Certificates  for  Munition  Workers.     1917. 

17.  Health  and  Welfare  of  Munition  Workers  Outside 

the  Factory.     1917. 

18.  Further  Statistical   Information  Concerning  Output 

in  Relation  to  Hours  of  Work,  with  Special  Refer- 
ence to  the  Influence  of  Sunday  Labour.     1917. 


108  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

Memorandum 
No. 

19.  Investigation  of  Workers'  Food  and  Suggestions  as 

to  Dietary.    Revised  Edition.     1917. 

20.  Weekly  Hours  of  Employment.     1917. 

21.  An  Investigation  of  the  Factors  Concerned  in  the 

Causation  of  Industrial  Accidents.     1918. 
Interim    Report.    Industrial    Efficiency    and    Fatigue. 

1917. 
Health  of   the  Munition  Worker.    Handbook   Prepared 

by  the  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee. 

1917. 

Some  of  these  reports  have  been  reprinted  by 
the  U.  S.  Department  of  Labor  as  follows: 

Memorandum 

Nos. 

1,  5,  7,  8,  9,  10,  12  and  15  in  Bulletin  of  the  United  States 

Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  No.  221,  entitled 
"  Hours,  Fatigue  and  Health  in  British  Munition 
Factories."     1917. 

2,  3,  6,  11  and  14  in  Bulletin  of  the  United  States  Bureau 

of  Labor  Statistics,  No.  222,  entitled  "Welfare 
Work  in  British  Munition  Factories."  1917. 
4  and  13  in  Bulletin  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics,  No.  223,  entitled  "The  Employment  of 
Women  and  Juveniles  in  Great  Britain  during  the 
War."     1917. 

A  summary  of  the  reports  has  been  published  as 
follows : 

Walter:  Munition  Workers  in  England  and  France.  New 
York,  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  1917. 

3.  Miinsterberg:  Psychology  and  Industrial  Efficiency. 
Boston,  1913. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  109 

4.  Hollingworth :  Vocational  Psychology,  its  Problems  and 
Methods.    New  York,  1916. 

5.  Lovett  and  Martin:  The  Spring  Balance  Muscle  Test. 
American  Journal  of  Orthopedic  Surgery,  XIV,  415,  1910. 
See  also  Martin  and  Rich:  American  Journal  of  Physiology, 
XLVII,  1918;  Mosher  and  Martin:  Journal  of  the  Ameri- 
can Medical  Association,  LXX,  1918. 

6.  Florence:  Use  of  Factory  Statistics  in  the  Investiga- 
tion of  Industrial  Fatigue.  A  Manual  for  Field  Research. 
Columbia  University.     New  York,  1918. 

British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science:  The 
Question  of  Fatigue  from  the  Economic  Standpoint.  Interim 
Report  of  the  Committee,  consisting  of  Professor  J.  H. 
Muirhead  (Chairman),  Miss  B.  L.  Hutchins  (Secretary), 
Mr.  P.  Sargant  Florence  (Organizing  Secretary),  et  at.  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  p.  283,  1915.  Second  Interim  Report,  Do.,  p.  251, 
1916. 

7.  Ryan:  The  Quantitative  Measurement  of  General 
Fatigue.  Proceedings  of  the  American  Physiological  Society, 
American  Journal  of  Physiology,  XLV,  537,  1918. 

8.  Kent:  Interim  Report  on  an  Investigation  of  Industrial 
Fatigue  by  Physiological  Methods.  London,  1915.  Second 
Interim  Report,  Do.     London,  1916. 

9.  The  literature  of  fatigue  is  very  voluminous.  For  brief 
reviews  of  the  physiological  aspect  of  the  subject  the  follow- 
ing papers  may  be  consulted: 

Lee:  Fatigue.  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Associa- 
tion, XLVI,  1491,  1906.  Do.  Harvey  Lectures,  1905-06. 
Philadelphia,  1906. 

Lee:  The  Nature  of  Fatigue.  Popular  Science  Monthly, 
LXXVI,  182,  1910. 

Lee  and  Aronovitch:  Does  a  Fatigue  Toxin  Exist?  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Society  for  Experimental  Biology  and  Medi- 
cine, XIV,  153,  1917. 


110  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

The  industrial  aspect  of  fatigue  is  presented  compre- 
hensively in: 

Goldmark:  Fatigue  and  Efficiency.    New  York,  1912. 

10.  Gilbreth:  Motion  Study.    New  York,  1911. 

11.  Gilbreth  and  Gilbreth:  Fatigue  Study.  New  York, 
1916. 

12.  Lee:  The  Effects  of  Temperature  and  Humidity  on 
Fatigue.    American  Journal  of  Public  Health,  II,  863,  1912. 

Winslow,  Kimball,  Lee,  Miller,  Phelps,  Thorndike  and  Pal- 
mer: Some  Results  of  the  First  Year's  Work  of  the  New 
York  State  Commission  on  Ventilation.  American  Journal 
of  Public  Health,  V,  85,  1915.  The  full  report  of  the  Com- 
mission has  not  yet  been  published. 

13.  Lee  and  Scott:  The  Action  of  Temperature  and  Humid- 
ity on  the  Working  Power  of  Muscles  and  the  Sugar  of  the 
Blood.     American  Journal  of  Physiology,  XL,  486,  1916. 

14.  Lee:  Fresh  Air.  Popular  Science  Monthly,  LXXXIV, 
313,  1914. 

15.  Taylor:  The  Principles  of  Scientific  Management. 
New  York  and  London,  1911. 

16.  Lee:  Is  the  Eight-Hour  Working-Day  Rational? 
Science,  XLIV,  727,  1916. 

17.  Mather:  The  Forty-eight  Hours'  Week;  a  Year's 
Experience  and  Its  Results  at  the  Salford  Iron  Works, 
Manchester.     Manchester,  1894. 

18.  Fromont:  Une  Experience  Industrielle  de  Reduction 
de  la  Journ£e  de  Travail.  Instituts  Solvay.  Brussels  and 
Leipzig,  1906. 

19.  Abbe:  Die  Volkswirtshaftliche  Bedeutung  der  Ver- 
kiirzung  des  Industriellen  Arbeitstages.  Gesammelte  Ab- 
handlungen,  III,  203.     Jena,  1906. 

20.  Fitch:  Hours  and  Output;  Some  War-time  Testi- 
mony in  Favor  of  a  Short  Work-day.  The  Survey,  XXXVIII, 
138,  1917. 

21.  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee:  Further 
Statistical  Information  Concerning  Output  in  Relation  to 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  111 

Hours  of  Work,  with  Special  Reference  to  the  Influence  of 
Sunday  Labour.  Memorandum  No.  IS.  London,  1917. 
Health  of  the  Munition  Worker.     London,  1918. 

22.  James:  The  Energies  of  Men.     New  York,  190S. 

23.  Martin,  Withington  and  Putnam:  Variations  in  the 
Sensory  Threshold  for  Faradic  Stimulation  for  Normal  Human 
Subjects.  3.  The  Influence  of  General  Fatigue.  American 
Journal  of  Physiology,  XXXIV,  97,  1914. 

24.  Kent:  The  Monday  Effect  in  Industry.  Proceedings 
of  the  Physiological  Society,  Journal  of  Physiology,  L,  lv, 
1915-16. 

25.  Ayres:  Music's  Effect  on  Six-day  Cyclists.  Bicycling 
World  and  Motorcycle  Review.     1911. 

26.  Mosso:   Fatigue.     New  York,  1904. 

27.  Hayhurst :  Report  of  the  Illinois  Commission  on  Occu- 
pational Diseases,  49,  1911. 

28.  Alexander:  Cost  of  Labor  Turnover.  Proceedings 
of  the  Employment  Managers'  Conference,  Philadelphia,  Pa., 
April  2  and  3,  1917.  Bulletin  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor  Statistics,  No.  227.    Washington,  1917. 

29.  Andrews:  Economic  Effects  of  the  War  upon  Women 
and  Children  in  Great  Britain.     New  York,  1918. 

30.  Thompson:  The  Mental  Traits  of  Sex.     Chicago,  1903. 

31.  Weinberg:  Krankheit  und  Soziale  Lage.  Der  Ein- 
fluss  der  Sozialen  Lage  auf  Krankheit  und  Sterblichkeit  der 
Frau.     Berlin,  1913. 

32.  Layet:  Le  Travail  des  Enfants  et  des  Femmes  dans 
l'lndustrie.  Encyclopeclie  d'Hygiene  et  de  M<klecine  Pub- 
lique,  VI.     Paris,  1894. 

33.  Warren  and  Sydenstricker:  Health  Insurance;  its 
Relation  to  the  Public  Health.  Public  Health  Bulletin,  No. 
76.     Washington,  1916. 

34.  Hollingworth :  Functional  Periodicity.  An  Experi- 
mental Study  of  the  Mental  and  Motor  Abilities  of  Women 
during  Menstruation.     New  York,  1914. 

35.  Simpson  and  Galbraith:   Observations  on  the  Normal 


112  THE  HUMAN  MACHINE 

Temperature  of  the  Monkey  and  its  Diurnal  Variation,  and 
on  the  Effect  of  Changes  in  the  Daily  Routine  on  this  Varia- 
tion. Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh,  XLV, 
65,  1905. 

36.  Linhard:  Report  of  the  Danish  Expedition  to  the 
Northeast  Coast  of  Greenland,  1906-8,  XLIV.  Copenhagen, 
1910. 

37.  Benedict:  Studies  in  Body  Temperature.  1.  Influ- 
ence of  the  Inversion  of  the  Daily  Routine;  the  Temperature 
of  Night-workers.  American  Journal  of  Physiology,  XI, 
145,  1904. 

38.  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee:  Industrial 
Efficiency  and  Fatigue.    Interim  Report.    London,  1917. 

39.  U.  S.  Department  of  Labor:  Accidents  and  Accident 
Prevention.  Report  on  Conditions  of  Employment  in  the 
Iron  and  Steel  Industry  in  the  United  States,  IV.  Senate 
Document  No.  110,  62d  Congress.    Washington,  1913. 

40.  New  York  State  Factory  Investigating  Commission: 
Night-work  of  Women  in  Factories.  Second  Report  of 
Commission,  I,  1913. 

41.  Brandeis  and  Goldmark:  The  Case  Against  Night- 
work  for  Women.  National  Consumers'  League.  New 
York,  1918. 

42.  Bogardus :  The  Relation  of  Fatigue  to  Industrial  Acci- 
dents.    American  Journal  of  Sociology,  XVII,  1912. 

43.  Departmental  Committee  on  Lighting  in  Factories  and 
Workshops.    First  Report,  I.     London,  1915. 

44.  Kober  and  Hanson:  Diseases  of  Occupation  and  Voca- 
tional Hygiene.    Philadelphia,  1916. 

Thompson:  The  Occupational  Diseases:  Their  Causation, 
Symptoms,  Treatment  and  Prevention.    New  York,  1914. 

45.  Abbott  and  Gildersleeve :  The  Influence  of  Muscular 
Fatigue  and  of  Alcohol  upon  Certain  of  the  Normal  Defences. 
University  of  Pennsylvania  Medical  Bulletin,  XXIII,  169, 
1910. 

46.  Jones:   The  Administration  of  Industrial  Enterprises. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  113 

New  York  and  London,  1917.  See  also  Tolman:  Social 
Engineering.     New  York,  1909. 

47.  Lusk:  The  Fundamental  Basis  of  Nutrition.  New 
Haven,  1914. 

48.  Stern  and  Spitz:  Food  for  the  Worker.    Boston,  1917. 

49.  Rose:  Feeding  the  Family.     New  York,  1917. 

50.  Of  the  voluminous  literature  of  Scientific  Management, 
the  reader  may  profitably  consult  the  following  books: 

.  Taylor:  The  Principles  of  Scientific  Management.  New 
York  and  London,  1911. 

Gantt:  Work,  Wages  and  Profits.     New  York,  1913. 

Emerson:  Efficiency  as  a  Basis  for  Operation  and  Wages. 
New  York,  1914. 

Thompson:  Scientific  Management,  A  Collection  of  the 
More  Significant  Articles  Describing  the  Taylor  System  of 
Management.     Cambridge,  1914. 

Drury:  Scientific  Management,  A  History  and  Criticism. 
Columbia  University.    New  York,  1915. 

Hoxie:  Scientific  Management  and  Labor.  New  York 
and  London,  1916. 

51.  "Imbert  and  M6stre:  Travaux  Originaux  des  Inspec- 
teurs.  Recherches  sur  la  Manoeuvre  du  Cabrouet  et  la 
Fatigue  qui  en  Resulte.  Bulletin  de  l'lnspection  du  Travail, 
XIII  and  XIV,  374,  1905. 

Imbert:  Les  M^thodes  du  Laboratoire  Appliqu&s  a 
l'Etude  Directe  et  Pratique  des  Questions  Ouvrieres.  Revue 
G£n6rale  des  Sciences  Pures  et  Appliqu6es,  XXII,  47S,  1911. 

52.  Amar:  Organisation  Physiologique  du  Travail.  Paris 
(Dunod  &  Pinat),  1916. 

53.  Hamp:  La  France  Pays  Ouvrier.    Paris,  1916. 

54.  National  Industrial  Conference  Board:  Hours  of 
Work  as  Related  to  Output  and  Health  of  Workers,  Cotton 
Manufacturing.  Research  Report  Number  4.  Do.,  Boot 
and  Shoe  Industry,  Research  Report  Number  7,  Boston,  191S. 


INDEX 

Abbott  and  Gildersleevc,  80 

Accidents,  ":?:  and  fatigue,  74,  78;  hourly  distribution  of,  74; 

and  illumination,  70;   and  inexperience,  74;    and  night 

work,  68,  77 
Acidosis,  16 
Age  of  workers,  47 
Alexander,  49,  50 
Amar,  97 

Bogardus,  73,  74 

Ca'  canny,  39 
Capacity  and  output,  39 
Chaney,  68 

Day  work  compared  with  night  work,  61 

Efficiency,  conditions  of,  4 
Efficiency  engineering,  90 
Eight-hour  day,  27,  31,  36 
Emerson,  93 
Employers,  duties  of,  42 
Engis  Chemical  Works,  33 
Epstean,  59 

Fatigue,  and  accidents,  74,  78;  and  age,  48;  and  composition 
of  urine,  16;  and  hearing,  15;  and  heat  and  humidity,  21; 
and  illumination,  21;  and  infection,  80;  and  luncheon, 
25;  and  mental  influences,  44;  and  monotonous  work, 
18;  of  muscle,  13,  24;  in  muscular  work,  16;  and  music, 
115 


116  INDEX 

45;  and  output,  10;  primary  and  secondary  sources  of, 
19;  and  rest,  24,  45;  and  sight,  15,  46;  and  strength,  14; 
tests  for,  14;  and  ventilation,  21;  weekly,  43 

Fatigue  substances,  24 

Filing,  physiological  analysis  of,  97 

Food,  22,  84 

Gantt,  93 
Gilbreth,  19,  96 
Greenwood,  67 

Hamp,  103 

Hastings,  16 

Haynurst,  47 

Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee,  34,  45,  47,  67,  71,  88 

Hearing  and  fatigue,  15 

Heat  and  fatigue,  21 

Hollingworth,  7,  58 

Human  machine,  2,  29,  104 

Humidity  and  fatigue,  21 

Illumination,  and  accidents,  76;  and  fatigue,  21 

Imbert  and  Mestre,  96 

Industrial  medicine,  79 

Industrial  operations,  repetitive,  10;  variety  of,  5 

Industry,  and  medicine,  103;  and  physiology,  3,  4,  104;  and 

war,  3 
Infection  and  fatigue,  80 

James,  39 
Jones,  81 

Kent,  15,  43,  46 

Labor  turnover,  49 
Lee,  21 


INDEX  117 

Lovett  and  Martin,  8,  14 
Luncheon  and  fatigue,  25 

Machinery,  1 

Martin,  8,  14,  43 

Medicine,  industrial,  79;  and  industrialism,  103 

Menstruation,  58 

Mental  influences  and  fatigue,  44 

Monday  effect,  43 

Monotonous  work  and  fatigue,  18 

Mosso,  46 

Miinsterberg,  6 

Muscle,  fatigue  of.  13,  24 

Muscular  work  and  fatigue,  16 

Music  and  fatigue,  4.5 

National  Industrial  Conference  Board,  38 

Night  work,  61;   and  accidents,  68,  77;  alternation  with  day 

work,  71 ;  efficiency  of,  67;  and  health,  68;  output  of,  64; 

and  sleep,  70 

Opsonic  index  and  fatigue,  80 

Output,  and  capacity,  39;  curves  of,  12,  17,  65;  of  day  work, 

11;  and  fatigue,  10;   limiting  of,  39;   of  night  work,  66; 

and  scientific  management,  92;  stereotyping  of,  40 
Overtime,  46 

Paget,  79 

Physiological  organization  of  work,  96 
Physiology  and  industry,  3,  4,  104 
Piece-rate,  effect  of  cutting,  41 
"  Practical  "  point  of  view,  3 
Practice  effect,  14,  44 

Public  Health  Service,  8,  10,  15,  16,  21,  27,  40,  50,  58,  64, 
72,87 


118  INDEX 

Rate  setting,  42 
Repetitive  operations,  10 
Rest  and  fatigue,  24,  45 
Resting  periods,  24 
Rose,  85 
Ryan,  15 

Salford  Iron  Works,  32 

Scientific  management,  90 

Scott,  21 

Secondary  sources  of  fatigue,  19 

Shoe  manufacture,  33 

Sight  and  fatigue,  15,  46 

Sleep  and  night  work,  70 

Soldiering,  39 

Spring  balance  test,  8,  14 

Strength,  and  fatigue,  14;  standard,  8 

Sunday  work,  47 

Taylor,  25,  90,  92,  93 

Taylorism,  90 

Temperature  of  body,  62 

Tests,  for  fatigue,  14;  for  vocational  fitness,  6 

Thompson,  54 

Trench-digging,  27 

Treppe,  13 

Vascular  skin  reaction  test,  15 
Ventilation  and  fatigue,  21 
Vernon,  28,  34,  68 

War  and  industry,  3 

Welfare  work,  81 

Women,  absences  of,  from  work,  58;  differences  between 
men  and,  54;  health  of,  57;  increase  in  employment  of, 
53;  industrial  efficiency  of,  53;  and  night  work,  70,  72 


INDEX  119 


Workers,  age  of,  47;  duties  of,  4,  42;  qualifications  of,  5 
Working  day,  effect  of  shortening,  31;  length  of,  29 
Working  power,  maintenance  of,  43 

Zeiss  Optical  Works,  33 


